Category: Press Releases

The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) has awarded Optimal Solutions Group several contracts to assess online course materials for high school students for compliance with Section 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards. Optimal’s DHS Trusted Testers will provide technical assistance to content developers and assist them in remediating course materials.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased reliance on internet-based learning, highlighting the need for digital accessibility and inclusion for students and individuals with disabilities. Optimal Solutions Group is proud to partner with MSDE in ensuring that all students have access to educational materials that meet accessibility standards.

Optimal Solutions Group is a leading research and consulting firm that provides data-driven solutions to improve public policy and decision-making. The company’s work spans a range of fields, including education, health, and workforce development.

Optimal’s teams have made significant strides in leveraging the latest ChatGPT and BARD AI tools, which are already enhancing our Real-Time Framework for evidenced-based decision making. Through this cutting-edge technology, we have been able to generate software test scripts, social media content, resolve software development queries, and enhance web data scraping in a relatively short period of time. While we are excited about our early success, we remain cautious and diligent in ensuring the highest standards of privacy, security, data governance, validity, and verification are upheld. Our commitment to these principles is unwavering as we continue to explore new opportunities and push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI technology.

Optimal was awarded the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) – Small Business (SB) Pool 1. OASIS is a General Services Administration (GSA) government-wide best-in-class procurement vehicle that provides flexible and innovative solutions for complex professional services. It encompasses a broad set of offerings covering everything from program management services, management consulting services and financial services to logistics services, engineering services, and scientific services. Specific tasks may include data analytics, monitoring and evaluation, and management consulting.

Learn more about how to make Optimal your innovative partner through the OASIS contract solution.

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Optimal Solutions Group, LLC

Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a nonpartisan public policy research,  technical assistance and analytics firm that stands out for its quantitative expertise, innovative and technology approaches to provide rigorous, data-driven research and technical assistance to government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations. Located at the University of Maryland’s Discovery District in College Park, Optimal is a leader in driving real-time public policy research. Optimal has 60+ employees, including multidisciplinary researchers with backgrounds in economics, education, health, housing, sociology, statistics, information management and entrepreneurship. Optimal has four research centers—Health, Education, Housing and Workforce Development, and Social Policy—as well as an International Practice, Analytics Group, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.

Women face a wider variety and a greater severity of challenges in starting and growing their business ventures than men. Difficulties obtaining government contracts represents one of the largest hurdles faced by women-owned firms. Congress approved the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contracting Program to provide greater opportunities for small businesses to win federal contracts.

The Small Business Administration partnered with Optimal Solutions Group LLC (Optimal) to conduct a study that identified the industries in which WOSBs are underrepresented with respect to federal procurement contracting. Optimal used the disparity ratio approach, which measures the degree to which WOSBs are represented in proportion to their prevalence in the population of “ready, willing, and able” businesses. The disparity ratios were calculated by the number of contracts and the obligations of contracts. The evaluation also used secondary data sources, such as the Federal Procurement Data System, the System for Award Management, and calculations based on Census data for all firms in the United States.

Overall, the evaluation suggested that results regarding WOSBs’ disparity in federal procurement depend on how it is measured. The results revealed that WOSBs’ underrepresentation was greater when the disparity was measured with respect to the obligations of awards than for the number of awards. These results support the importance of using both measures of the disparity. Optimal recommends that future studies should develop interactive, near real-time decision support tools to provide detailed results for disparity metrics.  

Visit WOSB Federal Contracting Program for more information.

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Optimal Solutions Group, LLC

Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a nonpartisan public policy research and technical assistance firm that stands out for its quantitative expertise and innovative approaches to provide rigorous, data-driven research and technical assistance to government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropic foundations. Located at the University of Maryland’s Discovery District in College Park, Optimal is a leader in driving real-time public policy research. Optimal has 60+ employees, including multidisciplinary researchers with backgrounds in economics, education, health, housing, sociology, statistics, information management and entrepreneurship. Optimal has four research centers—Health, Education, Housing and Workforce Development, and Social Policy—as well as an International Practice, Analytics Group, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) monitors whether government agencies are providing opportunities for small business participation in federal contracting by performing Surveillance Reviews, which assess whether selected Procurement Centers (PCs) at federal agencies execute their small business programs effectively and according to federal regulations.

The SBA completes about 30 Surveillance Reviews annually at major PCs across the country. These are selected for review from a pool of approximately 3,000 PCs and based on several criteria, including, but not limited to, failing to meet small business goals in the prior fiscal year and having not been reviewed in the prior 5 fiscal years. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Surveillance Reviews shifted from in-person site visits to virtual Surveillance Reviews from March 2020 to the present. Barriers to virtual information sharing such as security constraints reduced the number of reviews possible during the pandemic.

Optimal Solutions Group LLC is evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of Surveillance Reviews, which includes an analysis of outcomes for PCs that have undergone Surveillance Reviews and to what extent PCs increase their small business contracting goal achievements following Surveillance Reviews. This evaluation also looks at lessons learned from the SBA’s shift to virtual Surveillance Reviews during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results in findings will be used to produce actionable recommendations to Surveillance Review effectiveness and efficiency and be presented to the SBA in 2022.  

Visit small business federal contracting for more information.

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Optimal Solutions Group, LLC

Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a nonpartisan public policy research and technical assistance firm that stands out for its quantitative expertise and innovative approaches to provide rigorous, data-driven research and technical assistance to government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations. Located at the University of Maryland’s Discovery District in College Park, Optimal is a leader in driving real-time public policy research. Optimal has 60+ employees, including multidisciplinary researchers with backgrounds in economics, education, health, housing, sociology, statistics, information management and entrepreneurship. Optimal has four research centers—Health, Education, Housing and Workforce Development, and Social Policy—as well as an International Practice, Analytics Group, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.

Each year, the Small Business Administration (SBA) produces its Small Business Procurement Scorecard, which aims to assess the performance of federal agencies towards achieving their small business contracting goals, provide valid and reliable data on federal contracting with an emphasis on transparency, as well as analyze and report agency level and government-wide progress towards the goals. For fiscal year 2017, the SBA revised the methodology for the scorecard, and has since conducted a rigorous program evaluation to assess the effectiveness of this change and the scorecard overall in increasing small business opportunities and improving the ability of federal agencies to meet their small business procurement goals.

Optimal Solutions Group LLC (Optimal) found that the change in the scorecard’s methodology did not result in many changes to small business procurement practices at federal agencies for prime contracting. No changes were observed in indicators of small business opportunities or small business prime contracting dollars after the methodology change. However, the scorecard overall has had a strong positive relationship with indicators of small business prime contracting opportunities, which, in turn, have a positive association with small business contracting dollars. The study conducted by Optimal also found that agencies would like for the SBA to provide guidance on navigating Category Management while promoting small businesses. Overall, the study found partnership and understanding between agencies and the SBA to be the most crucial factor in the entire process of setting and meeting goals to improve small business contracting opportunities in the federal government.

While the findings of the study shed light on the nature of the relationship between the scorecard methodology change and the scorecard overall on small business opportunities and contracting dollars, the study could not provide definite findings of these relationships due to data limitations and methodological challenges.

Visit Small Business Procurement Scorecard for more information.

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Optimal Solutions Group, LLC

Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a nonpartisan public policy research and technical assistance firm that stands out for its quantitative expertise and innovative approaches to provide rigorous, data-driven research and technical assistance to government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations. Located at the University of Maryland’s Discovery District in College Park, Optimal is a leader in driving real-time public policy research. Optimal has 60+ employees, including multidisciplinary researchers with backgrounds in economics, education, health, housing, sociology, statistics, information management and entrepreneurship. Optimal has four research centers—Health, Education, Housing and Workforce Development, and Social Policy—as well as an International Practice, Analytics Group, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) offers tools, solutions, and resources to address manufacturer’s diverse challenges and opportunities. Optimal Solutions Group LLC (Optimal) will provide access to a manufacturing data analysis and modeling tool or service . This tool/service will put dynamic and relevant manufacturing data in the hands of the MEP Centers, which helps with efficiency in serving their local markets.

The goal with this tool/service is to gain granularity in understanding of U.S. manufacturing –– from varying industry levels, to varying geographical levels, to different occupational levels –– and to understand data trends in the U.S. manufacturing sector at various levels of detail. Being able to understand any changes that may be coming to the U.S. manufacturing sector and its subcomponents and being able to prepare for those changes are of importance to the NIST MEP.

Optimal will provide a data tool/service that is hosted on a web-based platform that can be accessed via a site license, which will allow NIST MEP and the national network of MEP Center users to quickly gain access to aggregated manufacturing relevant data from multiple sources and use that data to analyze different aspects of U.S. manufacturing, including changes in establishment counts, changes in employment numbers, and supply chain identification and mapping, etc. Optimal will identify and populate the data. This data will then be aggregated in the tool/service and used to populate analyses and reports, which can also be automatically generated and downloaded from the tool/service. Work is set to begin on this project in October 2021.

Optimal previously provided evaluation support for NIST MEP’s Business to Business Network Pilot Project.

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Optimal Solutions Group, LLC

Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a nonpartisan public policy research and technical assistance firm that stands out for its quantitative expertise and innovative approaches to provide rigorous, data-driven research and technical assistance to government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations. Located at the University of Maryland’s Discovery District in College Park, Optimal is a leader in driving real-time public policy research. Optimal has 60+ employees, including multidisciplinary researchers with backgrounds in economics, education, health, housing, sociology, statistics, information management and entrepreneurship. Optimal has four research centers—Health, Education, Housing and Workforce Development, and Social Policy—as well as an International Practice, Analytics Group, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.

The Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) program, part of the Small Business Administration (SBA), helps small businesses in low-income metropolitan or rural areas with high poverty and unemployment rates gain preferential access to federal procurement opportunities. Businesses obtain HUBZone certification in part by employing staff who live in a HUBZone and maintaining a “principal office” in one of these specially designated areas.

Optimal Solutions Group LLC (Optimal) evaluated the economic impact of the HUBZone program and found it has a moderate impact on the 30 counties studied. Optimal used an input-output model to assess the inflow of economic activity brought on by federal contracts won by HUBZone businesses to the distressed HUBZone communities. To estimate the program’s effect on each state and selected counties, the study estimated the total employment, earnings, value added, as well as gross output impacts of the identified contract awards to HUBZone firms.

Through the HUBZone program, federal procurement spending is directed into underutilized areas. Although the findings from the 30 selected counties are not representative of all contract awards to the universe of HUBZone firms, the findings are consistent in terms of the impact of the contract awards to HUBZone firms on large and small local economies. The HUBZone program has a moderate impact on all 30 counties in terms of value added and employment supported by contract awards to HUBZone firms.

Visit HUBZone program for more information.

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Optimal Solutions Group, LLC

Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a nonpartisan public policy research and technical assistance firm that stands out for its quantitative expertise and innovative approaches to provide rigorous, data-driven research and technical assistance to government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations. Located at the University of Maryland’s Discovery District in College Park, Optimal is a leader in driving real-time public policy research. Optimal has 60+ employees, including multidisciplinary researchers with backgrounds in economics, education, health, housing, sociology, statistics, information management and entrepreneurship. Optimal has four research centers—Health, Education, Housing and Workforce Development, and Social Policy—as well as an International Practice, Analytics Group, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.

The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Boots to Business (B2B) program is offered free of charge and helps transition service members from military to civilian life through entrepreneurship education and training. During the COVID-19 pandemic, an in-person course rapidly transitioned to an instructor-led virtual course. A new study by Optimal Solutions Group LLC (Optimal) examines the implementation of the virtual delivery and the course quality results.

The study focuses on a two-day classroom course, “Introduction to Entrepreneurship,” part of a curriculum that provides foundational knowledge required to develop a business plan and introduces participants to available SBA resources. The transition of this course to a virtual environment allowed continued service to transitioning military, and the virtual delivery also increased access to those otherwise underserved by removing barriers to the physical location and in-person requirements of the course. Due to the rapid and unplanned transition, the SBA did not prescribe curriculum, delivery, or facilitation instruction changes to its resource partners. Optimal’s evaluation will help increase the SBA’s understanding of how it can effectively implement the B2B course in a virtual environment. The generalizable findings of the study will be used to inform programming and process improvements to increase the program’s effectiveness and may inform decision-making for future SBA virtual training offerings.

Optimal’s evaluation analyzes raw data from the course quality survey and performance data in order to answer evaluation questions such as, “How can the B2B course be most effectively implemented in a virtual environment?” and “Which best practices from the review of the literature and findings can the SBA incorporate to improve the delivery of this virtual training?” Results from the data analysis will be presented to the SBA in a detailed report in 2022.

Visit SBA’s Boots to Business program for more information.

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Optimal Solutions Group, LLC

Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a nonpartisan public policy research and technical assistance firm that stands out for its quantitative expertise and innovative approaches to provide rigorous, data-driven research and technical assistance to government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations. Located at the University of Maryland’s Discovery District in College Park, Optimal is a leader in driving real-time public policy research. Optimal has 60+ employees, including multidisciplinary researchers with backgrounds in economics, education, health, housing, sociology, statistics, information management and entrepreneurship. Optimal has four research centers—Health, Education, Housing and Workforce Development, and Social Policy—as well as an International Practice, Analytics Group, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.