By Ann Roosevelt
The Army’s acquisition process needs to change from a cumbersome process to one that is more responsive to service needs, according to a top official.
“The question is how do you build an acquisition process that allows you to get new technology to the field in a timely manner without losing your accountability,” Under Secretary of the Army Nelson Ford said at Pentagon roundtable Sept. 8.
The number two civilian leader, Ford took office July 24 as the designated chief management officer under the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. Previously he had been acting in the position and assistant secretary for financial management and comptroller.
Most agree Army acquisition is a cumbersome process, he said. Deployment demands for Iraq and Afghanistan led to the creation of an information acquisition process to get equipment quickly to the field, shrinking the often-lengthy formal acquisition process.
“Our experience suggests that isn’t just exactly the best way to do it,” Ford said. “We’ve lost some accountability. We know we’ve lost some accountability.”
Paper has a lot to do with holding up the current processes, he said. “One of the things that is clear is that our current acquisition process is built on paper–and nobody in business acquires anything with a paper driven process.”
Sitting at the conference table in his Pentagon office, Ford held his hand out shoulder height, a good three feet off the ground, saying, “We have pictures of one contract file being two stacks of paper that tall.”
Nobody in business does that, he said. “It’s all in a computer. All the forms are in a computer. All approvals are done electronically.”
The next step is clear: “What we’ve got to do is automate the contract management process.”
Another step is also clear, but will be a challenge for the service, he said. “We’ve got to have an understanding that the acquisition process begins with requirements and ends with closeout. And writing the contract is only a chunk of the middle.”
Those who are going to use the equipment must be clear about what they want and not put requirements on the table that are expensive or not technologically proven unless it can be justified as part of the requirement.
And the process is not complete until the vendor is paid, and the contract is closed out, he said.
The service focused efforts, and the independent Gansler commission focused on the process from starting to write the contract to doing the contractor’s representative oversight.
“But there’s a finance piece at the back end and an operational piece at the front end and the whole thing has to be tied together if you’re going to acquire and deliver the tools that people need to the soldier in a timely way,” Ford said.
In 2007 Army Secretary Pete Geren named former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Jacques Gansler chairman of an independent commission to assess the service acquisition system’s role in support of large expeditionary operations.
At that time, the Army said the Criminal Investigation Command was conducting more than 80 investigations into contract fraud in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, affecting some $6 billion in contracts.
Geren accepted the resulting Oct. 31 report, “The Commission on Army Acquisition and Program Management in Expeditionary Operations,” which outlined key areas for success and offered recommendations for improvement: in the workforce, organizational restructure, training and tools, and legislative, regulatory and policy assistance.
Geren also formed the Army Contracting Task Force to review and take action, if needed, on current contracting.
Both reviews have been drawn together, Ford said. “We’ve accepted virtually all of the recommendations from Gansler so we’re about implementing them. We’re not waiting.
“I hold a weekly Army Contracting Campaign Plan meeting with people from all over the Army,” he said. “Once a week we sit down for an hour and go over what we are doing to implement various recommendations from Gansler and how do we expand outside what Gansler focused on to give ourselves better visibility into the requirements process and better visibility into the relationship between the contracting command and the people who pay the bills, the finance folks.”
That’s going well, he said. “I think we’re making a fair amount of progress.”
Meanwhile, the Army is working on how to rationalize rapid equipping and the traditional, but longer, formal acquisition process. “I don’t think we’re there [yet]…but there needs to be one standard way of acquiring things in the Army that is time-sensitive as well as process sensitive.”