The Contracting Education Academy

Contracting Academy Logo
You are here: Home / Archives for complexity

By

Air Force’s next hack of the federal procurement system: One-year funding

Air Force Maj. Gen. Cameron Holt knows a little something about the complexity of federal contracting.
Maj. Gen. Holt

The deputy assistant secretary for contracting, in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, started his career as a contracts manager. He served as the procuring contracting officer for the F-22 fighter and held an assortment of executive positions during his 19-year career in the service.

So when he gave the House and Senate armed services committees a list of regulations that need to be revoked, removed or replaced a few years ago, he knows what he’s talking about.

“I told them that you’ve written so many laws that we need to implement that our contracting officers in the trenches can’t even follow them all because they actually start to conflict with each other,” Holt said at the annual Government Contract Management Symposium sponsored by the National Contract Management Association. “That environment is not really paying attention to the opportunities that, for instance, the 809 panel gave to them to update the system. I think they are really focused on a different agenda right now. I hope they will join us in really streamlining, especially the defense contracting environment, but really the federal contracting environment.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/category/reporters-notebook/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/

By

DoD finalizing major rewrite of acquisition guidance

Pentagon officials are “very close” to finishing their work on an overhaul of the official guidebook to DoD’s byzantine acquisition system, and the process led them to the conclusion that they need Congress’ help to help unwind a cumbersome maze of laws that have been layered on through decades of well-intentioned reform efforts.

The document in question is officially known as DoD Instruction 5000.02 — the key collection of guidance that describes the military acquisition process. Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, logistics and technology, has been working on a revamped version for months.

“I’ll be out very soon,” he said Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s going to emphasize tailoring even more than previous editions did. And we show people multiple models of how you can structure an acquisition program depending upon what the product is. You know, at the end of the day, the way you structure the program to develop, produce and field the product depends on what the product is and what it takes to get that job done. There’s a logic and a flow that has to be consistent with what you’re trying to accomplish. And it’s definitely not a one-size-fits-all business. We do a large range of different types of things.”

That tailored approach to acquisition is consistent with the messages in the current Better Buying Power effort Kendall’s office has been leading in DoD, emphasizing that the department’s own professionals need to use their judgment to structure the right acquisition vehicle and contract type for the right job. The latest version came with the tagline: “A guide to help you think.”

Kendall says the rewrite of the instructions was needed, in part, because of several recent laws Congress has passed imposing new requirements on DoD acquisition managers. And reworking the document from scratch led his office to the conclusion that those recent legislative changes were just one more layer on a system that’s been growing in complexity for decades.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/65/3502073/DoD-finalizing-major-rewrite-of-acquisition-guidance

Contracting Academy Logo
75 Fifth Street, NW, Suite 300
Atlanta, GA 30308
info@ContractingAcademy.gatech.edu
Phone: 404-894-6109
Fax: 404-410-6885

RSS Twitter