Government/Military Trends
Government/Industry Partnering Creating an Enabling Environment
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Acquisition Reform has brought about many changes in the acquisition process. These changes have been instrumental in reducing costs, decreasing acquisition cycle times, and improving contract performance. A significant factor in the success of Acquisition Reform implementation has been cooperation among all parties involved. By working together toward a common goal, standards developing organizations (SDOs) and the Department of Defense (DoD) can be more efficient, cost effective and provide the best products and services to military and commercial users alike.
The industry has recently seen a significant increase in various forms of partnering. The intent of these relationships is to improve competitive advantage through collaboration and the best use of talents, working toward a common goal. This commitment forms the foundation for an environment of trust and cooperation that benefits everyone. Some benefits partnering brings to the table include:
- Minimizes disagreements and disputes by creating a forum and procedures for early identification of problems
- Facilitates open communications for efficient resolution
- Creates an atmosphere of understanding of both industry and government needs and perspectives
- Minimizes surprises by fostering early identification of risks and proactively resolving potential problems
- Fosters creativity and innovation
- Reduction of cycle time and costs
- Elimination of duplicate government/industry activities
- Promoting concurrent and integrated processes
- Improved decision making and development of trust
- Continuous monitoring of the program and its progress from a common perspective
- Joint decision making that delivers long-term benefits
- Synergy needed for high performance is generated
- Effective problem solving
However, cooperation alone is not the only solution to realizing the DoD's long-term goals. DoD has sponsored a number of initiatives, under the Acquisition Reform umbrella, to further minimize the improper use of government-unique specifications and standards and to promote the use of Non-Government Standards (NGS). Some of these include:
Defense Standardization Program
DoD policy is to promote standardization of material, facilities, and engineering practices to improve military operational readiness, reduce total ownership costs and reduce acquisition cycle time. It is also DoD policy to state requirements in performance terms, wherever practical, and to make maximum use of NGSs and commercial technologies, products and practices. To pursue these policies, DoD implemented the Defense Standardization Program (DSP), a single integrated program with a uniform series of specifications, standards and related documents. DSP has been instrumental in facilitating numerous other initiatives to further DoD's goals.
Standardization Management Program
This program provides NGSs for use by the Commercial Acquisition Program, a program that utilizes commercial material, manufacturing process and product standards when these standards meet or exceed DoD requirements. Today, other NGSs and Federal standardization documents (e.g., Commercial Item Descriptions, performance and detailed specifications and federal specifications) often cite NGSs.
Integrated Product and Process Development and Integrated Process Team
Integrated Product and Process Development and Integrated Process Team (IPPD/IPT) are key principles of Acquisition Reform. IPPD is an expansion of simultaneous engineering utilizing a systematic approach to the integrated, concurrent development of a product and its associated manufacturing and continuous processes to satisfy customer needs. The use of Integrated Product Teams (IPTs) is a multi-disciplinary teamwork approach to implement IPPD and enable making the right decisions at the right time. IPTs are composed of representatives from all appropriate functional disciplines working together with a team leader to build successful and balanced programs, identify and resolve issues, and make sound and timely decisions. The purpose of IPTs is to make team decisions based on timely input from the entire team (e.g., program management, engineering, manufacturing, test, logistics, financial management, procurement and contract administration) including customers and suppliers.
Joint Technical Architecture (JTA)
Effective military operations require the ability to respond with a mix of forces, anywhere in the world, on a moment's notice. Interoperability is essential for these joint operations. Information must flow seamlessly and quickly among DoD's sensors, processing and command centers and shooters to enable dominant battlefield awareness and operations inside the enemy's decision loop. The DoD Joint Technical Architecture (JTA) is key to DoD's overall strategy to achieve this capability. Its open, standards-based approach also offers significant opportunities to reduce cost and cut development and fielding time through enhancing software portability, use of commercial-off-the-shelf software, ease of systems upgrade, and hardware independence. The DoD JTA specifies a set of performance-based, primarily commercial, information process, transfer, content, format, and security standards. These standards specify the logical interfaces in command, control and intelligence systems and the communications and computers that directly support them. The JTA is a practical document that identifies standards where products are available today. It is mandatory for all emerging systems and system upgrades. JTA is consistent with and supportive of DoD's Specification and Standards Reform. The JTA is a living document that continues to evolve as technology and the marketplace change.
Single Process Initiative (SPI)
The Single Process Initiative (SPI) is a DoD Acquisition Reform initiative that permits contractors to replace government-unique business and manufacturing processes with commercial equivalents - allowing them to use their most efficient business and manufacturing processes to reduce or eliminate the use of military standards and specifications. One of the most positive changes resulting from SPI has been increased partnering between government and industry. The DoD is no longer in a position to impose restrictive process requirements without paying a premium price for them. Similarly, industry is being challenged to find new ways to satisfy DoD mission requirements at a much-reduced cost. The cumulative effect has been an increase in the use of commercial processes and continuing refinement of the SPI process itself.