I work for my father who owns his own machine shop. We rely alot on GM, and Alcoa plants which are local to us, to keep us busy. There are always talks of closings and it makes me nervous knowing that if one goes we are going to be in big trouble. My question is for those that have experience with doing work for the government is it:

1)worth the effort
2)should you be nervous about quoting because of all the stipulations
3)is it necessary to be ISO compatible
4)how do you get your foot in the door
5)is there alot of behind the scenes stuff that needs to be done
-written procedures
-inspection reports
-does someone actually come and inspect a first article
-shipping requirements- barcode and following certain packing procedures

I would love to try it, but my father sees it as a waste of time. It just seems like it would be a learning process at first but something you could get good at. In general we would look at RFQ's which are small business set aside. Do you need to have all the bells and whistles to do these rfq's.

Any info would be appreciated and any good links would be great.

Thanks,
Chad