NDIA | The Contracting Education Academy

March 26, 2019 By cs

Reject Section 809 Panel’s acquisition reforms, federal workers urge Congress

Federal workers told Congress last week that defense acquisition reform proposals billed as cutting red tape for the Pentagon to buy trailblazing commercially available items would “result in large unnecessary costs,” and they are urging lawmakers to reject them.

The opposition by the American Federation of Government Employees, which counts 300,000 Pentagon employees in its ranks, to recommendations from the congressionally mandated Section 809 Panel means lawmakers will have multiple arguments to chew on as they decide which of the panel’s many reform proposals to include in the annual defense policy bill. The Section 809 Panel’s two-year effort yielded a 2,000-page report that was finalized in January.

AFGE’s national president, J. David Cox Sr., argued in a six-page letter to the House and Senate Armed Services committees dated March 15 that the panel’s proposed “dynamic marketplace framework” and other recommendations would line the pockets of defense contractors and only appear as well-reasoned reforms and streamlining of regulations.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Cox said in the letter. “This would, while increasing contracting profits, predictably decrease funds that otherwise could have been targeted toward compelling needs such as military readiness, support to our uniformed volunteers and their families, and the replacement of aging war-fighting equipment.”

Cox argued the panel hadn’t made the operational case for the proposal and that buying commercial might thwart the military’s interoperability goals and introduce more cyber vulnerabilities. He said the panel had been made up of former industry and procurement officials who were “biased solely to give expanding procurement opportunities to the private sector” and lacked representation from the “total force management communities.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/03/19/reject-defense-reforms-federal-workers-urge-congress

February 28, 2019 By cs

Expectations following the Section 809 Panel’s 3rd volume of acquisition policy reforms

The Section 809 Panel recently concluded its monumental analysis of defense acquisition law and regulations and released its third volume of recommended changes. The Panel’s work stands out from previous acquisition reform efforts with the appendices of detailed legislative and regulatory changes that accompany the commissioners’ analysis and recommendations.

Given the scope of the Panel’s work, few believe that Congress or the Department of Defense (DoD) will — or even could — simply adopt the recommendations in full. Legislative bandwidth for additional acquisition reform is finite, and some of the Panel’s recommendations will prompt robust debate. In this post, we analyze some of the recommendations that government contractors should follow most closely. We highlight key issues and address the political dynamics involved in enacting them.

Background

The Section 809 Panel, established by Congress in Section 809 of the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) to address issues with Defense acquisition policies, recently released the third and final volume of its report. Volume III contains 58 recommendations for how to reform the way DoD purchases commercial products, manages acquisition programs, trains its acquisition workforce, adjudicates contract disputes, and communicates with industry, among other issues. On February 13, Covington and the National Defense Industrial Association convened and hosted an Industry Day, during which members of the Panel and leading acquisitions experts discussed the findings.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2019/02/final-report-expectations-following-section-809-panels-third-volume-acquisition-policy-reforms/

February 7, 2019 By cs

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/

August 12, 2014 By cs

Recommendations for DoD acquisition reform focus on 7 areas

The Defense Department added its voice to a growing list of associations and lawmakers with ideas on how to improve the military’s acquisition process.

DoD’s ideas center less on what Congress can do and more on what it shouldn’t do.

Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, sent a letter to Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) back in June detailing seven areas where he thinks DoD needs help to improve acquisition outcomes.

For the first time publicly today at the AFCEA Acquisition Modernization conference in Washington, Kendall highlighted his seven recommendations.

Kendall said the biggest thing Congress could do is end the threat of sequestration in 2016 and beyond.

“2013 was a nightmare year. We actually implemented sequestration well into the year. We bought ourselves a little time with the deal that got us through 2014 and presumably through 2015. It’s coming right back in 2016,” he said. “We are working on the budget right now. The services are finalizing their [budget plans], and we will go through an exercise this fall where we will have to look at what the President will submit and something that is compliant with sequestration to see what the damage is. The damage is huge.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/394/3676550/Kendall-shapes-DoD-acquisition-reforms-around-7-areas-

February 16, 2011 By cs

Air Force chief tells industry to brace for budget cuts

The Air Force’s top officer told an audience of defense industry representatives on Wednesday that with the emerging budget crunch they must produce the capabilities they contract for and deliver them on time.

But Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, said the services also will have to “scale back” their requirements for future systems.

“It’s a simple thing to me — deliver what you promise and don’t promise what you can’t deliver,” Schwartz told the National Defense Industrial Association forum. He warned that there would be “little tolerance” for deviations from contractual agreements.

Asked about the effects of the expected tightening of defense budgets after nearly 10 years of sizable increases, Schwartz said slipping schedules “will be problematic for us.” That is true because when they plan replacements for existing systems, “you make certain assumptions” on what the new systems will provide, he said. “If those assumptions prove faulty, you obviously have to have fallbacks, which typically are not as effective and not as economical.”

He cited the Air Force’s urgent “fighter recapitalization” program, which depends on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Because the Lockheed Martin program is running years late, “We might have to take some actions to extend the service life of the legacy fleet,” he said. “In ideal circumstances, you wouldn’t have to do that.”

The Air Force is studying ways to prolong the service life of its aging F-16 and F-15s, which could burn up billions of dollars.

Schwartz said he did not want to leave the impression “that every challenge we have is industry’s fault alone. It’s not. The [Defense] Department has its place in fixing requirements and stabilizing assumptions.”

“The bottom line is, we have to reduce the uncertainty for a little while in acquisition outcomes, and that probably will require we be more conservative.” Schwartz said that means the Air Force will “have to scale back our ambitions a bit,” on future requirements, which will be evident in the “effort to field a long-range strike capability.” In seeking the new stealthy, nuclear-capable bomber, “we’re not going to be as ambitious as we were perhaps at one time,” he said.

“That will make it easier for us to manage, and less challenging for industry to keep its promises.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates stopped the Air Force’s new bomber program last year, but restarted it in his Jan. 6 “efficiencies” announcement. But the Air Force will have to cut other expenses to pay for the bomber.

While noting that “being less ambitious would be a better strategy” on starting new programs, Schwartz mentioned a couple areas where the Air Force will seek to add capabilities. Speaking to a forum focusing on special operations, Schwartz said the Air Force Special Operations Command was looking to add some smaller, cheaper aircraft to help it develop and train air forces in developing countries, as it is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. He mentioned some small, commercially available transports and a “light-strike aircraft.”

The later program has a competition between the Brazilian-made Tucano and the modified version of the T-6 primary training plane offered by Lockheed and Hawker-Beechcraft.

Schwartz also said he would add 600 combat air controllers, airmen who work with ground combat units to call in close air support.

— by Otto Kreisher – National Journal – February 10, 2011

Federal workers told Congress last week that defense acquisition reform proposals billed as cutting red tape for the Pentagon to buy trailblazing commercially available items would “result in large unnecessary costs,” and they are urging lawmakers to reject them.

Background

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.

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