industry feedback | The Contracting Education Academy

September 25, 2019 By cs

Are meetings with industry actually accelerating military acquisitions?

Military leaders say they are determined to find faster ways to buy cutting-edge technologies.

“We can’t afford to spend seven years thinking about a requirement,” Army Undersecretary Ryan D. McCarthy said during a 2018 visit to Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

“If it is going to take that long, you are probably not going to get it. So, we need to get these capabilities sooner.”

To that end, the Department of Defense has increased the number of engagements with industry, launched alternative contracting vehicles, and taken other steps to streamline innovation more effectively. Industry officials are often clamoring for that interaction, but some say the Pentagon’s efforts are beginning to bear fruit.

One area where those changes are most visible has been in the Army’s modernization of its battlefield network. David Huisenga, president and chief executive at Klas Telecom Government, said he has noticed a marked difference in the quality and quantity of engagements between industry and the Department of Defense.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.c4isrnet.com/industry/2019/09/19/are-meetings-with-industry-actually-accelerating-military-acquisitions/

September 19, 2019 By cs

DoD will require vendor cybersecurity certifications by this time next year

The department released a draft maturity model and timeline for new certification requirements for all of the defense industrial base.

The government has stringent processes for verifying the IT products and services it uses comply with relevant cybersecurity standards, such as authorities to operate for cloud services and supply chain regulations for hardware products. But those standards and processes don’t cover the vendors.

For the Defense Department, this is a critical issue, as doing business with industry requires the department to share sensitive information, even at the earliest steps of the process.

The department has been kicking around the idea of creating a certification standard for defense industrial base companies to ensure vendors’ cybersecurity posture was adequate to handle controlled and classified information. That became an official effort in March, and on Sept. 4th the department released the first draft Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, or CMMC, outline for public comment.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/09/dod-will-require-vendor-cybersecurity-certifications-time-next-year/159702/

September 6, 2019 By cs

Budgets require industry-government cooperation

We should all celebrate the recent passage and signing of the 2019 Bipartisan Budget Act that ended the federal budget impasse and did away with the destructive spending caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act.

Thankfully, the way legislators wrote the budget deal and its two-year coverage means the threat of sequestration has finally passed.

Observers will note, however, the budget deal hints at the feared decline of defense resourcing going forward. While the defense topline grows by 2.64 percent in 2020, that growth slides to 0.33 percent in 2021; and these percentages do not consider inflation. That is well below the 3-5 percent real growth after inflation called for by former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. He saw that growth level as a requirement to regain readiness and make the necessary investments in modernization and recapitalization to ensure the U.S. military can carry out the National Defense Strategy.

While defense experts, think tanks and the Defense Department all call for fully resourcing the strategy, harbingers of flatter defense budgets yet again call for the hard thinking required to get the absolute most out of every defense dollar spent. One critical avenue of that approach is better government-industry collaboration. The more government can work with industry to identify key technology and workforce investments, telegraph future requirements, and develop innovative contracting vehicles, among other things, the more efficiently and cost-effectively industry can provide the best services and products to our warfighters over time.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/8/29/ndia-perspective-budgets-require-industry-government-cooperation

February 7, 2019 By AMK

DoD procurement overhaul report recommendations draw both praise, critique from industry groups

The most important recommendation to come out of the third Section 809 Panel report on defense procurement reform is one that doesn’t directly relate to procurement, according to a leading industry group.

Corbin Evans, director of regulatory policy for the National Defense Industrial Association, told WashingtonExec the most crucial recommendation is for Congress to enact timely regular appropriations bills instead of continuing resolutions. Otherwise, defense acquisition will continue to suffer, regardless of what other reforms are made.

“This has been an NDIA priority for years,” he said. “It’s important to ensure that these bills are done on time and that money can be distributed in a predictable manner.”

Evans also singled out the panel’s recommendation to enable enhanced use of advanced payments at the time of contract awards to small businesses, which comprise about 75 percent of NDIA’s 1,700 members.

Keep reading this article at: https://washingtonexec.com/2019/01/section-809-report-dod-acquisition-reform/

October 19, 2017 By AMK

DoD wants to cut contracting time by 50 percent as part of AT&L split

As the Pentagon prepares to split its acquisition office, the Defense Department’s top buyer is setting a goal to cut contract delivery time by 50 percent.

Ellen Lord, who will likely be the last defense undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, wants DoD to take advantage of new authorities given to the department in order to speed up the delivery time from when the Pentagon requests a product and when it’s delivered.

“Other transaction authorities, I think we see the Air Force doing a nice job with some of those and, frankly, we don’t have all of our staff that are totally cognizant of what those authorities are and what we can do and what we can’t do. What we are trying to do is develop an environment where people are comfortable saying ‘Hey, what if?’ and I’m trying to say ‘Yes, if’ versus ‘No’ to things,” Lord told reporters after an Oct. 11 speech at an Association of the United States Army event in Washington.

She added that DoD has created a risk averse culture because it makes such a public exhibition of programs that stumbled. Lord said she wants stumbling to happen earlier in the acquisition cycle where it is less costly.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/defense/2017/10/dod-wants-to-cut-contracting-time-by-50-percent-at-part-of-atl-split/

Military leaders say they are determined to find faster ways to buy cutting-edge technologies.

The department released a draft maturity model and timeline for new certification requirements for all of the defense industrial base.

We should all celebrate the recent passage and signing of the 2019 Bipartisan Budget Act that ended the federal budget impasse and did away with the destructive spending caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act.

The most important recommendation to come out of the third Section 809 Panel report on defense procurement reform is one that doesn’t directly relate to procurement, according to a leading industry group.

As the Pentagon prepares to split its acquisition office, the Defense Department’s top buyer is setting a goal to cut contract delivery time by 50 percent.

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