Secretary of Defense William J. Perry announced the award of
six David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Awards at a ceremony
today in the Pentagon. The award program, established this year,
recognizes the best DoD acquisition Integrated Product Teams from
the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, U.S. Special Operations Command,
Defense Logistics Agency and the Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization.
In addition, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and
Technology Paul G. Kaminski presented civilian service awards and
certificates of recognition to 43 DoD members who contributed to
the rewriting of the DoD 5000 series of regulations and guidance
on acquisition.
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PACKARD AWARDS
The Army's Secure Mobile Anti-Jam Reliable Tactical
Terminal Integrated Product Team (IPT) initially estimated in FY
92 that the program would cost about $660 million to produce, but
after applying a series of acquisition initiatives, including
further contract competition and a stable funding offer, a
production contract was awarded earlier this fiscal year for $250
million. This mobile tactical communications system is the next
generation satellite communications system for Army corps and
below organizations.
Members of the Navy's New Attack Submarine IPT developed an
acquisition strategy that not only satisfied technical,
affordability and industrial base objectives, but is expected to
lower costs from original estimates. The program's Integrated
Product and Process Development approach will result in fewer
design changes during production, allowing a significant shift of
labor hours from construction to earlier, more cost effective
design efforts: an estimated 900,000 labor hours over the course
of design and lead ship construction should be saved. Cost
avoidances are also associated with the use of a commercial high-
speed emergency diesel generator engine, and the use of an open
systems architecture and commercial-off-the-shelf electronics in
the NSSN's Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence
system.
The Air Force's Centralized Request for Proposal IPT earned
the award for their efforts to integrate acquisition reform
initiatives throughout the Air Force, including an Air Force-wide
education effort to introduce the new techniques to the
acquisition workforce.
The US Special Operations Command's Directional Infrared
Countermeasures (DIRCM) IPT streamlined and met critical and time-
sensitive acquisition objectives for this cooperative acquisition
effort with the United Kingdom. Cost savings were achieved by
creating the international cooperative agreement with the United
Kingdom Ministry of Defense, innovative test procedures, and
streamlining of IPT management. DIRCM will significantly enhance
special operations forces C-130 aircraft survivability against
currently deployed infrared missiles.
The Defense Logistics Agency IPT efforts resulted in cost
savings over various programs through increased emphasis on
commercial practices, emerging technology, and direct vendor
delivery. DLA initiatives include using prime vendor, quick-
response, corporate, and other long-term contracts; aggregating
items on contracts through the use of commercial catalogs; and
conversion to commercial item descriptions and other
specification simplification efforts. DLA initiatives will
result in cost savings through lower costs of products and
services to DoD.
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization was recognized
for the on-going acquisition efforts in the Medium Extended Air
Defense System program. MEADS is DoD's proposed system to
counter tactical ballistic and cruise missile threat.
The award is named in honor of the late David Packard, a
former deputy secretary of defense during the Nixon
administration. He was also the founder and chairman of the
Hewlett-Packard Company and chairman of the Presidential
Commission on Defense Management chartered by President Ronald
Reagan in 1985.
The awards were selected as the Service's or agency's most
successful acquisition program using innovative team techniques
first advocated by Packard.
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