Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology Paul Kaminski
announced today the approval of recommendations contained in a recently
completed acquisition reform process action team (PAT) report on the Department
of Defense contract administration process.
The PAT's efforts were geared toward internal procedures and designed to
complement, rather than overlap, current statutory and regulatory reform. The
team's goals were to reduce the time it takes to accomplish tasks, encourage
risk management instead of risk avoidance, and eliminate non-value added
activities.
The PAT, which was charted in November 1994, reported through the Deputy Under
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Reform, who directed its activities
through a board of directors. The board of directors was composed of
representatives from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Defense Logistics Agency,
Defense Contract Audit Agency, and the Office of the Director of Defense
Procurement. Membership of the PAT was drawn from the military departments,
the Defense agencies, the Defense Acquisition University and Office of the
Secretary of Defense staff elements.
The contract administration reform PAT was directed to develop a comprehensive
plan to re-engineer specific elements of the contract administration process
within DoD in direct support of far-reaching DoD goals related to acquisition
reform. In its report, the team made 36 recommendations which covered the
following areas:
Identifying what contract administration activities are most important to
customers and will likely continue as a significant activity after reform.
Exploring the potential for early involvement of field contract administration
personnel in formulating acquisition strategy and subsequent pre-award
activities, with the objective of reducing cycle times, limiting resources
required to support the process and easing subsequent contract administration
efforts.
Establishing a process for identifying "quality" contractors and identifying
how government contract administration requirements drive contractor and
government staffing levels.
Developing recommendations and implementation plans to reengineer the contract
administration processes associated with contract closeout, oversight of
contractors' overhead rates and contractor payment, as well as examining the
government property process in coordination with the ongoing effort by the
Director, Defense Procurement.
Media representatives may obtain a copy of the report from the Directorate
for Defense Information, Pentagon Room 2E765, or by calling (703) 695-0192.
