Defense industry groups issue 2005 recommendations.

• Author: Steffes, Peter M.
• Position: Government Policy Notes - Acquisition Reform Working Group - Industry Logistics Coalition - Industry Overview

Since 1993, the National Defense Industrial Association has co-chaired two defense industry coalitions known as the Acquisition Reform Working Group (ARWG) and the Industry Logistics Coalition (ILC).

The ARWG represents large and small business, manufacturers and service companies. The ILC represents the majority of the defense manufacturing and service companies involved with logistics, depot maintenance and life-cycle product support for the Department of Defense and the military services.

The purpose of these two coalitions is to identify issues affecting the defense industrial base, recommend solutions and make these concerns known to Congress and the administration.

The ARWG concentrates on issues related to the federal acquisition process. The changes made since enactment of the 1994 Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act and the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act are important. Yet, these reforms represent only the proverbial tip of the iceberg of what is required to truly transform the procurement process.

The aim of the ARWG is to reduce costs, enhance efficiencies and promote quality management as the federal government expands the use of commercial practices and reaches out more to the private sector to acquire goods and services. Similarly, the ILG promotes policies that sustain and improve the ability to provide world-class repair and maintenance capabilities to the war-fighter. This year, the two groups' recommendations included:

Commercial acquisition practices. The government in recent years has attempted to realign its purchasing processes to lower costs and to gain access to new commercial technology. It does this by eliminating--or at least lowering--barriers that make doing business with the government overly cumbersome and unattractive to commercial firms, thus inhibiting greater integration of commercial and military production lines.

The Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, the Clinger-Cohen Act and the 2003 Services Acquisition Reform Act enabled major changes in the way the federal government buys commercial items. However, ARWG has identified several areas in which the full potential of existing commercial practices has not been recognized and employed, either because of legislative or regulatory restrictions, or failure to use the flexibility provided. These require a number of additional steps, including:

* Curb proliferation of government-unique requirements applicable to commercial prime contracts.

* Make it clear that time...