In February of this year, the Defense Science Board released a report titled, “Buying Commercial: Gaining the Cost/Schedule Benefits for Defense Systems.” The obvious focus of the report is to look at the opportunities and challenges offered to DoD when acquiring commercial off-the-shelf equipment, systems and supplies as opposed to those developed specifically to meet the standards of a particular service.
The board’s recommendations were centered on themes and included acquisition strategies; manpower; organization and process changes; communications; standards; and leadership. The board echoed the philosophy that future conflicts will almost certainly be asymmetric with adversaries waging the war they want, not the war we plan for. With the enemy buying their war fighting capabilities off the street, it will be critical for the United States to be in a position to do the same when warranted.
This is important to the logistics community in that the acquisition of systems that have not been introduced into the support chain early on can create difficulty during the sustainment of that system. The board addressed this by acknowledging that the cost and support over the entire life cycle of any system (off-the-shelf or regular acquisition process) is an integral consideration during the selection process. Acquisition teams should make it a standard component in a request for proposal that the system must receive “technology refreshment rather than assume a system is frozen in the original configuration.”
If you have not seen a copy of this report, please feel free to drop me an e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and I will send you a PDF copy.
In addition to being the editor-in-chief here at KMI Media Group, I have also recently assumed the direct management of Military Logistics Forum magazine as well. The magazine is the dominant information source for the logistics community, and we are moving forward with our plans to make the magazine even more comprehensive and focused.
Regardless of the actual FY10 budget numbers, one thing is for sure and that is the military will still need to be maintained, sustained, moved and supplied. MLF has all of this covered.
 Jeff McKaughan, Editor This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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