CONCLUSION

Performance by the arsenal of the United States was a major reason for the victory in World War II and the end of the Cold War. The threat of a world war between superpowers is lower than it has been in over 50 years. In the last half of the 20th century, the American economy was able to deliver both guns and butter. Nevertheless, there was a price to pay: a budget deficit, higher taxes, and doubts among the citizenry as to the efficiency of the federal government.

Philip Howard points out that the public’s dissatisfaction with government is not caused by the goals but by government techniques. The bureaucracy is subject to conflicting objectives, e.g., satisfying the customer while at the same time protecting the integrity of the procurement process. Over the years procurement laws, regulations, checklists, and continuous oversight have been the way to protect the integrity of the system. Thousands of pages of law, rules, and regulations have given the appearance that following the process was more important than delivering a product to the ultimate user on time at a reasonable price. Rules and regulations have eclipsed common sense and individual responsibility, thereby creating this balance.

In the early 1990s it was clear something needed to be done to make the federal acquisition system more efficient. Public opinion, the end of the Cold War, and the move into the Information Age and the changes it will bring, e.g., electronic data interchange, the Internet, and strategic alliances with suppliers, provided the motive for the nation’s leadership to seize the opportunity to make the changes needed. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed, a democratic form of government “often unintentionally works against itself; but its aim is more beneficial [than the aristocracy’s] . . . for all its faults, [a democratic government] is the best suited of all to make society prosper.” Being able to adjust past law and policies is “the great privilege of the Americans.”

David N. Burt’s 1984 book Proactive Procurement focuses on the importance of procurement in containing cost, improving quality, increasing productivity, shortening concept to delivery times, and integrating materials management through the use of modern technologies. Burt, collaborating with Michael Doyle on American Keiretsu (1993), addresses the need for strategic relationships among buyers and suppliers and the fact that the supply chain is a competitive weapon. Although their ideas are directed toward the private sector, the business practices of the commercial sector are also models for acquisition reform.

Reinventing government and streamlining federal acquisition were the methods selected to renovate the process. A customer-oriented goal for the federal acquisition system has been stipulated as doctrine for all to follow. Standards of performance have also been articulated that provide a framework to measure compliance and a set of continuous improvement targets. However, it would be remiss to leave the reader with the impression that government procurement will become the mirror image of the commercial market. The fundamental objectives of the federal acquisition process also include the need to be fair and maintain the public trust while at the same time fostering social and economic programs. These objectives must also be viewed with the understanding that federal contractors must comply with the Cost Accounting Standards as well as furnish the buyer cost or pricing data in absence of adequate competition. Therefore, the two markets will never be totally integrated.

In a paper titled The Road Ahead, the Under Secretary of Defense J.S. Gansler outlines a course the Department of Defense must follow to build on the past achievements of acquisition and logistics reform. The initial implementing action is “increased reliance on an integrated civil-military industrial base in lieu of a defense-unique industrial base.” The paper celebrates the successes of the department’s revolution in business affairs and the forging of a “strong partnership between the Congress, the administration, industry, labor unions, our acquisition community, and our ultimate customer, the warfighters.” It also establishes the following implementing actions, which are designed to build on the successes of the past, i.e., “a more efficient and effective acquisition and logistics environment that will deliver high-performance weapon systems and support to our warfighters in less time, and at a lower total cost of ownership”:

• Increase reliance on an integrated civil-military industrial base in lieu of a defense-unique industrial base

• Extend military specification and standard reform to re-procurements through the use of performance-based acquisitions to enable logistics reform

• Provide incentives for suppliers by using acquisition strategies that give contractors flexibility to innovate and access commercial solutions as a way to reduce acquisition cost and cycle time

• Migrate DoD oversight and buying practices to management of suppliers, not supplies, through establishment of strategic alliance relationships among buying commands and suppliers

• Expand the use of performance-based acquisitions by streamlining procurements for the services through use of commercial processes, products, and practices

• Expand the use of price-based acquisition for research and development by shifting significant risk to contractors and having alternatives available

• Adopt a new approach to systems acquisition in which price and schedule play a key role in driving design development and systems are reviewed by portfolio

• Develop a way to look at programs on a portfolio basis, which provides the flexibility to meet current threats by having viable alternatives to specific acquisition programs that have common architecture and information exchange requirements that facilitate interoperability with other programs or legacy systems

• Address the cost in the Operational Requirement Document (ORD) to determine what a system is worth compared to other capability needs and their costs

• Implement time-phased requirements and evolutionary acquisition as a way to reduce acquisition cycle times

• Transform its mass logistics system to a highly agile, reliable system that delivers logistics on demand

• Implement DoD Logistics Transformation Plans, DoD Logistics Strategy goals, and objectives metrics

• Identify Section 912(c) Pilot Program production support reengineering initiatives

• Assess the feasibility of developing new Product Support Working Capital Fund business areas to support legacy systems

• Establish logistics system architecture to coordinate integrating and reengineering business practices and to support information technology systems so that they operate to achieve total supply chain management in a unified manner

• Reduce the DoD acquisition infrastructure and overhead functions

• Continue to implement Service RDT＆E infrastructure efficiency initiatives

• Reduce DoD facilities and bases

• Provide the DoD workforce with the requisite skills to operate efficiently in its new environment and perpetuate continuous improvement

• Deliver team training courses for commercial practices and services

• Implement Phase II continuous learning to transition to a learning organization by improving individual and organizational performance through seeking out and adopting best practices

• Adapt the key facets of the DoD Corporate University to the Defense Acquisition University to facilitate acquisition reform further.

With acquisition reform as the backdrop, Chapter Two explains the role of the integrated acquisition team and relationships within it and shows how the team can satisfy the user’s needs through increasing reliance on business judgment in making cost-benefit tradeoffs and focusing its efforts on the management of risk and opportunities. Subsequent chapters concentrate on the tasks of the integrated acquisition team, using the phases of the acquisition process as the framework.