Supply Chain Management | The Contracting Education Academy

November 6, 2018 By AMK

Cyber supply chain task force to meet soon

A task force focused on reducing cybersecurity risks in the nation’s technology and communications supply chain will meet for the first time in the next few weeks, the Homeland Security Department announced last week.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced the task force’s creation during a cyber conference in New York in July during which she also announced the creation of a new Homeland Security division, the National Cyber Risk Management Center, focused on long-range cyber issues.

The task force will be chaired by private sector leaders but will be sponsored by the risk management center, according to a Homeland Security news release.

The task force will focus on government and industry supply chains and criminal and nation-state hacker efforts to compromise contractors and subcontractors deep within those supply chains, the department said.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2018/10/cyber-supply-chain-task-force-meet-soon/152429/

October 31, 2018 By AMK

DHS to use federal procurement to further reduce risks to the supply chain

The Homeland Security Department’s initiatives over the past year to address supply chain risks aren’t even close to hitting a crescendo. But the pace and volume of the drumbeat is distinctly mounting.

If the efforts to ban Kaspersky Lab, ZTE and Huawei products were just the prelude to the symphony, then the National Risk Management Center’s initial sprint topics, the business due diligence request for information and the latest effort to use the power of federal procurement are the opening sonata.

“There is a growing awareness and understanding to this issue. Our biggest challenge today is not having a national strategy around it while other countries do,” said Jennifer Bisceglie, president and CEO of Interos Solutions, which provides risk assessment services. “Until we have a national strategy, you will have pop up policies or programs or studies, like the one from MITRE. The time is beyond here to have a national strategy.”

The White House’s National Cyber Strategy gave a brief mention to supply chain risk management, saying the government should “improve awareness of supply chain threats and reduce duplicative supply chain activities within the United States government, including by creating a supply chain risk assessment shared service.” But it offered no specific details or initiatives.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2018/10/dhs-to-use-federal-procurement-to-further-reduce-risks-to-the-supply-chain/

December 12, 2017 By AMK

Changes to supply chain management and commercial item contracting in FY 2018 NDAA

For Department of Defense (DoD) acquisitions, the Conference Report for Fiscal Year 2018 NDAA includes provisions that simplify and others that complicate contractor responsibilities.

On November 8, 2017, the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services Committees announced that they had reached agreement to reconcile the different versions of the National Defense and Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2018 passed by the Senate and House earlier in the year.

The Senate unanimously approved the compromise legislation on November 16, sending it to President Trump to sign into law. The 2018 National Defense and Authorization Act Conference Report sent to the President includes proposed changes to supply chain management, to the definition of a “subcontractor” and to commercial item contracting that may impact your business.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=238f078d-5398-4cba-ba7b-8fdb3e308575

February 24, 2017 By AMK

Despite improvements, DoD is still top offender on GAO high-risk list

The government’s highest risk department is making improvements, but still has miles to go before it gets off the Government Accountability Office’s radar.

The Defense Department once again makes up a sizeable chunk of the GAO’s High-Risk List and is the most represented government department on the list.

Despite having some programs on the list for more than two decades, DoD is making headway in the realms of supply chain management and weapons system acquisition.

But DoD isn’t out of hot water yet. The Feb. 15 report still gives low marks, even for a list of bruised programs, to the department’s base management, its ability to weed out duplicative offices and the auditability of DoD’s finances.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/defense/2017/02/despite-improvements-dod-still-top-offender-gao-high-risk-list/

October 11, 2016 By AMK

Contract consolidation effort saves $2 billion and counting

Two years after the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) embraced the consolidation-of-contracts strategy known as category management, the White House recently announced that the effort to “transform the federal marketplace” has delivered $2 billion in savings.

OFPP Chief Acquisition Officer Anne Rung, in a blog post, said the Obama administration’s effort to modernize government and incorporate private-sector best practices through bulk purchasing is “on track” to save $3.5 billion by the end of next year. “We’ve seen prices drop by as much as 50 percent of personal computers since the release of the workstation policy,” Rung said. “By the end of 2016, 45 percent of the $1.1 billion spent in annual purchases for desktops and laptops will be consolidated into three governmentwide contracts.”

Small business goals were exceeded, Rung said, and 700 duplicative contracts were eliminated.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2016/10/contract-consolidation-effort-saves-2-billion-and-counting/132059

category-management-savings-as-of-oct-2016

More details on Anne Rung’s blog post entitled “Transforming the Federal Marketplace, Two Years In” at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/09/30/transforming-federal-marketplace-two-years

A task force focused on reducing cybersecurity risks in the nation’s technology and communications supply chain will meet for the first time in the next few weeks, the Homeland Security Department announced last week.

The Homeland Security Department’s initiatives over the past year to address supply chain risks aren’t even close to hitting a crescendo. But the pace and volume of the drumbeat is distinctly mounting.

For Department of Defense (DoD) acquisitions, the Conference Report for Fiscal Year 2018 NDAA includes provisions that simplify and others that complicate contractor responsibilities.

The government’s highest risk department is making improvements, but still has miles to go before it gets off the Government Accountability Office’s radar.

Two years after the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) embraced the consolidation-of-contracts strategy known as category management, the White House recently announced that the effort to “transform the federal marketplace” has delivered $2 billion in savings.

Search this Website