Auto-Valve, Inc.

Auto-Valve, Inc., a veteran-owned small business manufacturer headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, supplies high-precision valve and fluid control components to the Defense Logistics Agency as a prime contractor (97% of recent awards) and to major defense primes as a subcontractor. The company operates under NAICS 332911 (Industrial Valve Manufacturing) and competing predominantly through total small business set-asides on its prime work, with firm-fixed-price delivery orders and purchase orders dominating its contract structure.

Auto-Valve's prime portfolio centers on specialized valve components for military aerospace and defense platforms: poppet drain cocks, tank drain valves, check valves, fuel drain valves, pressure equalization valves, ball valves, relief valves, and windshield washer valves. Representative recent prime awards include a $140,000 total small business set-aside purchase order from DLA Land and Maritime for poppet drain cocks (September 2025), a $101,490 total small business set-aside for poppet drain cocks delivered to DLA Distribution Warner Robins within 387 days (January 2026), and a $136,300 firm-fixed-price purchase order from DLA Aviation for cock drain flush components (December 2024). The company also holds multiple Indefinite Delivery Contracts: a $1,999,999.99 non-set-aside IDC with DLA Aviation through April 2029 for valve assemblies and drain valves; a $749,999.99 total small business set-aside IDC with DLA Aviation through April 2028 for poppet drains and tank drain valves; a $350,000 total small business set-aside IDC with DLA Aviation through January 2029; and a $250,000 total small business set-aside IDC with DLA Land and Maritime through June 2026 for preformed packing materials.

Customer concentration is extreme and single-agency dependent. DLA Land and Maritime accounts for 947 awards (69% of prime count) and $17.8 million (60% of combined potential value), while DLA Aviation brings 176 awards (13%) and $9 million (30% of potential value). Together, the two DLA divisions represent 82% of all awards and 90% of dollar value. The remaining 18 customer agencies—Army, Air Force, Army Materiel Command, Coast Guard, and others—collectively contribute 89 awards and $1.1 million. This concentration reflects Auto-Valve's entrenched position as a qualified supplier on DLA's established vendor rolls for standardized military valve products but creates execution and recompete risk if DLA procurement strategy shifts.

Activity has grown over the past five years, from 23 awards in 2022 to a peak of 77 in 2025, then declining to 15 in the first quarter of 2026. The source captures only recent transactional data (purchase orders and delivery orders) rather than the full contract lifecycle, so year-over-year variation reflects ordering frequency rather than contract wins. The recompete cliff shows 15 awards (combined potential value $491 thousand) reaching completion within the next twenty-four months, representing modest rollover exposure given the vendor's high volume of standing IDCs.

On the subcontractor side, Auto-Valve serves Bell Textron, Bell Boeing Joint Project Office, The Boeing Company, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, supplying valves and electro-hydraulic-mechanical (EHM) components for the V-22 (Osprey), AH-1Z (Apache), CH-47F (Chinook), F-15EX, C-130J, and next-generation Future Vertical Lift platforms. Representative sub awards include work on V-22 PBL (performance-based logistics) service contracts with Bell Boeing, Bell AH-1Z upgrades for Nigerian foreign military sales, and Apache Lot 12 full-rate production supply to Boeing. Sub work represents only 3% of the award count (40 sub awards versus 1,336 prime awards) but signals access to tier-one primes and exposure to major platform production.

Auto-Valve competes almost entirely under total small business set-asides on its prime DLA awards and full-and-open on a minority of DLA orders. The company's concentration on DLA's small-business-set-aside IDCs and blanket purchase agreements reflects deliberate targeting of that market segment rather than broad competition across the defense industrial base. The IDC ceiling values ($250,000 to $2 million range) are consistent with DLA's standard single-award vehicles for specialized manufacturers, and the firm-fixed-price, delivery-order execution model reflects DLA's emphasis on rapid, low-friction procurement of pre-qualified standard parts. Auto-Valve's veteran-owned designation and small business status anchor most prime awards; as a subcontractor to major primes, the company supplies components to platforms in full-rate production where engineering qualification and supply-chain stability drive selections independent of set-aside benefits.

DESIGN & MANUFACTURE OF FUEL/DRAIN VALVES.