The House Armed Services Committee released a report “Challenges to Doing Business with the Department of Defense: Findings of the Panel on the Business Challenges in the Defense Industry.” The report was the culmination of six months of research, and while the report won’t earn any points for originality in title, anyway, it does represent congressional concern for maintaining a strong industrial base in the midst of challenging times.
The report made several recommendations, and offered a variety of criticisms of the current way of doing defense business. It noted that the current defense acquisition industry does not function like a free market system, due to the government’s role as both customer and regulator. It also criticized the acquisition system for failing to focus on cost and timeliness.
In the midst of rapid advancement in order to support two wars, the defense acquisition process did not adequately evolve to provide both oversight for current expenditures, and a long-term focus to help the department of defense plan for the future.
The report isn’t necessarily anything new, but it solidifies emphasize on overhauling the defense department’s acquisition corps, and the need for long-term planning to help preserve and support the defense industry. Among the HASC report recommendations are:
— Requiring the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Service Secretaries, to develop a long-term strategy for maintaining a robust and effective defense industrial base.
— Requiring the Secretary of Defense to develop policies and mechanisms to improve communication with industry to better enable industry to allocate independent R&D resources and make investments to meet the future needs of the Department.
— Ensuring that work being reserved for small business performance is actually performed by small businesses.
— Continuing to rebuild the breadth and depth of the defense acquisition workforce which will, in all likelihood, save money and improveacquisition outcomes.
— Simplifying and streamlining the acquisition process by conducting a comprehensive review of the laws and regulations that govern the acquisition process in order to repeal or amend regulations that are outdated or have had unintended consequences that outweigh the original intent of the regulation.
Read the full report here.
Lindy Kyzer is the editor of ClearanceJobs.com. She loves cybersecurity, social media, and the U.S. military. Have a conference, tip, or story idea to share? Email editor@clearancejobs.com.
