By Emelie Rutherford
A leading defense industry group is working to fine-tune its recommendations for how the Pentagon should go about buying things more efficiently.
The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) submitted a 12-page document to the Department of Defense (DoD) listing 97 preliminary recommendations for how to save money when purchasing goods and services.
That set of recommendations, which will be shortened before an Aug. 17 due date, are divided into four main categories: improving requirements definition and ensuring requirements and program stability; streamlining export controls; promoting efficient use of government and contractor resources; and eliminating unnecessary government-unique requirements.
Richard Sylvester, AIA’s vice president for acquisition policy, told Defense Daily his trade group is working to whittle the list it gave the Pentagon from 97 specific recommendations to a much smaller number of actionable items.
“It’s not going to be a new set of things but a culling of that list,” he said.
He will be focusing on recommendations that the Pentagon has the power to act upon.
The Pentagon collected initial ideas from the defense industry for its new so-called efficiency initiative in late July, just as Defense Secretary Robert Gates met July 29 with executives from the biggest defense shops.
The Pentagon plans to issue final implementing guidance of the initiative, and has set Aug. 17 as the date for final recommendations from industry.
This Pentagon efficiencies initiative, which is distinct from acquisition-reform efforts, is intended to yield $100 billion in savings over five years (Defense Daily, June 7). By identifying such savings, Pentagon leaders hope to maintain 2 percent to 3 annual real growth for warfighting capabilities within a constrained budget.
Sylvester noted that AIA’s preliminary recommendations contain both longer-range goals, such as improving the stability of weapon-systems’ requirements, and shorter-term items, including tailoring the Pentagon’s requests for information from industry.
The industry executives generally talked to Gates about the longer-range concerns on at the July 29 meeting, he said. Some of AIA’s preliminary recommendations would require legislation from Congress, so the association is focusing on items the Pentagon can act upon by itself when crafting the final list, he said.
In the area of improving requirements processes, AIA’s preliminary recommendations include: appropriately defining requirements at the outset of a contract, based on cost- schedule-performance trades; adequately funding undefinitized contracts or annual contract increments; and establishing performance metrics for translating defined requirements into effective contracts.
The AIA also highlights the unintended impacts of policy decisions that force added costs on contractors.
“We recommend that DoD champion a requirement that future regulations be accompanied by a cost-benefit statement so decision makers will know the cost impact of the new requirement and able to make an informed judgment about the costs and benefits of implementation,” the association says in its preliminary recommendations.
Sylvester dubbed as “aggressive” the Pentagon’s schedule for collecting input from the government and industry on the efficiencies initiative. The Pentagon is expected to roll out specific actions in mid-September.
Five Pentagon teams–focused on affordability, contract terms, productivity growth, productivity measurement, and services acquisition–will review the recommendations from industry and government.
Pentagon acquisition czar Ashton Cater is chairing the senior integration group and will hold public meetings with industry.
“There are there are real, systemic inefficiencies in the DoD acquisition system that add time and cost to programs,” AIA said in a statement. “We believe that this important undertaking must address those systemic cost-drivers and recommend specific changes in policies and regulations to eliminate unnecessary, duplicative and non- or low-value-added activities.”