Conclusions from the Annual Report on the Performance of the Defense Acquisition System

Wednesday, 02 July 2014 08:09 Nick Sanders
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Conclusions
The Hon. Frank Kendall (Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics) recently issued the second annual Report on the Performance of the Defense Acquisition System, focusing on data for Government Fiscal Years 1984 through 2013. Here’s your link.

The 126 page-long report is simply chock-full of data. Graphs and regression analyses and charts and lots and lots of information. But we want to ignore the data (which you are perfectly welcome to read for yourself) and focus on the conclusions that we noted as we skimmed through the report.

The most interesting finding in the report was the commentary on contract type. We have discussed contract type before. We were pleased to see that our assertions were confirmed by the report—i.e., that a FFP contract placed before requirements are fixed is no better than placing a cost-type contract, at least in terms of cost or schedule control. It’s a notion we wish would become more popular.

It was also interesting to see that competition—long the hallmark of public contract policy—was confirmed as leading to better acquisition outcomes. The report doesn’t say why that would be the case, but we assume (without evidentiary support) that the efforts involved in responding to a well-written RFP and it going through the detailed planning associated with preparing a good cost, technical and/or management proposal establish a solid foundation for program execution, once the contract is awarded.

At the end of the day, what strikes us is the rigor of the analyses. Apparently after decades of collection, there is sufficient contractual data for the statisticians to dig into, and so we are finally seeing some “common wisdom” myths being busted while others are confirmed. We don’t pretend to know who will use the information, or if the conclusions will actually affect public policy, but knowledge is generally held to be a good thing. And so this report would seem to be a good thing as well.