Supplier Readiness Programs

Your contracts flow down. So does your risk.

Supplier readiness programs for primes and mid-tier contractors who are responsible for their supply chain's CMMC status. We survey your supplier base, tier it by risk, move at-risk suppliers through standardized readiness tracks, and report progress to you quarterly. Your flow-down exposure becomes a program with a number on it.

CCAs and CCPs on every engagement. 15+ years inside the DIB.

The Flow-Down Problem

The government stopped verifying your suppliers. Your liability didn't move.

On July 13, 2026, the Department of War suspended CMMC Phase 2 third-party certification requirements. What did not change: DFARS 252.204-7012 remains in every applicable contract, NIST SP 800-171 remains the standard, and flow-down still makes you responsible for the compliance of your subcontractors. What changed is who verifies. With third-party assessments suspended, your suppliers' self-attestations and SPRS scores are the only verification layer between your supply chain and your liability.

The exposure is structural, and it just became less visible. The Department has said it will enforce through self-assessments, select government-led assessments, and False Claims Act accountability, and the Department of Justice has already pursued contractors over unsupported attestations. A supplier whose attestation cannot survive scrutiny can disqualify a team, stall a delivery order, or put your own affirmations at risk. You cannot deliver compliance to your suppliers yourself; that is cost, liability, and headcount outside your mission. But you cannot ignore it either, because the obligation is contractual and the liability is yours.

Most primes know their own status. Very few can defend their suppliers'. The verification the government stopped providing is now your problem. That gap is the program.

7012

DFARS flow-down obligations,
unchanged in every applicable contract

320

Assessment objectives
each supplier must meet

Quarterly

Readiness reporting
you can brief

How the Program Runs

Three stages. Fixed price at every step.

The program converts an open-ended liability into a bounded, reportable engagement. Every stage has a defined scope, a stated fee, and a deliverable you can put in front of leadership.

Supply Base Readiness Snapshot

We survey a defined slice of your supplier base: SPRS score status and currency, attestation defensibility, CUI scoping posture, environment strategy, and remediation maturity. You receive a tiered risk map of your supply base: which suppliers are ready, which are recoverable by your program dates, and which represent award risk. Every finding is evidence-based and defensible.

Deliverables Supplier-by-supplier readiness assessment, risk tiering by criticality and maturity, projected readiness timelines, program recommendations

6 to 8 weeks

Fixed Fee

Supplier Remediation Tracks

At-risk suppliers enter standardized readiness tracks: scoping and boundary definition, gap assessment against all 320 objectives, SSP and POA&M development, remediation guidance, and assessment preparation. Suppliers contract directly with Stehrling at pre-negotiated program rates. Your endorsement moves them; our delivery gets them to the finish line. Enclave and MSP solutions your suppliers already use are incorporated, not replaced.

Deliverables Per-supplier readiness engagements at program rates, standardized documentation and evidence, assessment preparation

Per supplier

Program Rates

Quarterly Program Reporting

You receive a quarterly readiness dashboard across the enrolled supplier base: status by tier, movement since last quarter, projected readiness dates against your program milestones, and escalation flags. Your supply chain risk posture becomes something you can brief, defend, and plan against.

Deliverables Quarterly readiness dashboard, tier movement analysis, milestone tracking, escalation flags for award-critical suppliers

Quarterly

Included

Engagement Models

Four ways in. You pick the funding model.

The program shapes to how you want to fund it, from fully sponsored to zero-cost endorsement. Every model delivers the same standardized readiness work and the same quarterly reporting.

Prime-funded

You purchase the Snapshot and quarterly reporting. Suppliers fund their own remediation at pre-negotiated program rates. You get visibility; they get a path; nobody negotiates pricing twice.

Co-funded

You subsidize a portion of remediation for critical or sole-source suppliers, the ones whose readiness you cannot afford to leave to chance. Everyone else pays program rates.

Mentor-Protégé

Where a DoD Mentor-Protégé agreement exists, CMMC compliance assistance qualifies as developmental assistance. You fund the protégé's readiness; DoD reimburses the cost.

Endorsed

Zero cost to you. You distribute the program to your supplier base at pre-negotiated rates and receive aggregate readiness reporting. The lightest lift, and often where programs start.

Why Stehrling

Standardized delivery, judged by people who have sat on the assessor side.

A supplier program lives or dies on consistency. Thirty suppliers prepared thirty different ways produces thirty different outcomes, and a dashboard nobody trusts. Stehrling delivers every supplier through the same standardized tracks, documented the same way, evidenced the same way, and measured against the same bar: what an assessor will actually accept.

Every engagement is led by a CCA or CCP credentialed practitioner. Our CCAs have conducted formal CMMC assessments, and our team has spent 15+ years inside the DIB, including assessments for top-five defense primes. We know what evidence holds up, what documentation gets challenged, and where suppliers consistently stall. That experience is what makes the quarterly numbers you brief upward defensible.

Your suppliers' enclave vendors and MSPs stay in the picture. We complete what they deploy. A compliant solution is not a compliant organization, and the organizational half is where supplier readiness programs are won.

"We build the program. We bring the expertise. You own the result."

Start the Conversation

How exposed is your supply base?

Talk to a practitioner about your supplier population, your program dates, and what a Snapshot would cover. We'll tell you honestly whether a program fits your situation. No sales pitch, response within 24 hours.

Talk to a Practitioner →