Industry INSIGHT


Revamping acquisition: Once more unto the breach


by Mr. Will Goodman


Editor’s Note: Industry Insight is an occasional column in which Army AL&T magazine gives members of the defense industry an opportunity to share their perspectives from “the other side of the fence” on how industry can work with the Army and DOD to provide essen- tial capabilities for the warfighter.


R


ecently, my organization, the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), hosted a meeting of universities and nontraditional suppliers look- ing for ways to get their innovative products into the defense supply chain. Te conversation took the usual course of such meetings, with participants


expressing frustration with laws and regulations, the slow pace of the acquisition system, the disconnect between operational needs and programs of record, and the apparent inability of the Pentagon to understand the business cycle of Wall Street or the development cycle of Silicon Valley.


Of course, someone was to blame. Congress, naturally. Acquisition policymakers in the Pentagon. Te acquisition workforce. And, since this meeting involved only non- traditional suppliers, the major primes and the traditional defense industrial base. If only each of them could see the perspective of commercial firms, of universities, of Wall Street and of high-tech innovators, and just do the right thing, the whole process would sort itself out.


Perhaps I have had a charmed career working in the Pentagon, in Congress and now in the defense industry, but I have yet to meet the people acting in bad faith who work tirelessly to undermine the national interest through a nightmarishly turgid and broken defense acquisition system. Instead, I have encountered individuals serving their country in good faith, reacting to the incentives and pressures of their roles and, frankly, acting as any of us would if we found ourselves in similar circumstances. If


ASC.ARMY.MIL 139


COMMENTARY


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