Reengineering Defense Acquisition. A Concept of Operations for Waging the Acquisition Campaigns of the 21st Century

Abstract : The defense acquisition system has earned a reputation of being unable to provide the weapons the warfighters need at a value the Congress and American taxpayers deserve. At the macro level, acquisition is the convergence of five processes requirements, technology, budgeting, management and operations and support. Micro-management of acquisition execution, when coupled with unstable requirements, technology and budgeting processes, results in a system that is not responsive to the customers' needs. It is time to implement dramatic changes based on a process-oriented reengineering of the entire system and radically improve its performance. To generate recommendations for system improvement, we assessed and restructured the top-level, macro processes associated with defense acquisition relying on the time-proven tenet of centralized control with decentralized execution. To address current system shortfalls, we propose greatly expanding the role of the joint staff in preparing, planning and executing joint acquisition campaigns. We suggest the Department of Defense (DoD) execute acquisition campaigns by mirroring the way military forces plan and execute joint battle campaigns. We suggest process improvements which will strengthen the link between requirements definition and technology insertion. We also suggest altering the budgeting process to enable the DoD to submit a more unified budget position each fiscal year. We then developed a phased, methodical approach for implementing the proposed changes.