Although still a small percentage of the Defense Department’s total spend, Other Transactional Authority (OTA) use grew more than 500 percent between 2012 and 2017.
Moreover, changes to the laws governing OTAs have been significant. The advent of “production authority,” which allows the use of OTAs all the way through production/implementation, has also helped drive their relevance and use.
In the end, the core point was and remains that this growth, which is continuing, is more than anything else an unmistakable signal from the military customer, representing that the customer’s frustration with the acquisition system has reached new heights. Fair or not, there is little else to explain the expansion.
Keep reading this article at: https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/04/27/will-the-empire-strike-back-ota-and-the-future-of-acquisition/
