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Despite a growing body of evidence that fixating on costs actually increases them, acquisition personnel insist on making every transaction cost-based. Sections 2379 and 2306a(d) of Title 10, USC, for instance, provide limited authority to obtain cost and pricing information for major weapons systems and their component parts where certified cost data are not required. This authority is over-applied in practice and ...more »

In business, time is money. In war, time is lives. Companies and the warfighter alike are threatened by the glacial pace of current procurement cycles. Purchases that have always taken months now take years. As prominent authorities on policy have noted (citing examples such as unmanned systems and MRAP), the USG often has the most success when bypassing the system entirely: “When it is necessary to go around the ...more »

In section 866 of the 2011 NDAA, Congress authorized a pilot program for the acquisition of Military Purpose Nondevelopmental Items (MPNDI). This allows products developed entirely at private expense to be purchased using streamlined, commercial-like procedures. This gap-filler was carefully “designed to test whether the streamlined procedures similar to those available for commercial items can serve as an effective ...more »

If the USG did not pay for development, it has no skin in the game. Include a presumption under FAR 2.101 that an item is commercial if developed entirely at private expense. Such items can be purchased at firm fixed prices and with no schedule or development risk to the USG. These advantages are undercut, however, if such items cannot be purchased efficiently (or at all). The increased transaction costs and complex ...more »