Kendall: Keep it simple on acquisition reform

Congress has left town and the annual August slowdown has hit the capital, but the Pentagon is no less keen on getting its message out about acquisition reform being a marathon rather than a sprint.

"Bureaucracies have this… self-perpetuating tendency" -- that's how Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall explains what he sees as a critical need to simplify design requirements for industry.

"Let's simplify the rules we have," Kendall told an AFCEA conference Aug. 5 in Washington, D.C. "Let's not put more in place that make it harder for us to do our job. And the thing I would argue against very strongly is very tight and restrictive rules that dictate contract time, that dictate acquisition procedures or strategies."

The conference served as an update on the Defense Department's push to roll out the latest acquisition guidelines -- Better Buying Power 3.0 -- which Kendall said will come out in two to three months.

He relayed a list of procurement issues that he is focusing on ahead of BBP 3.0, from intellectual property rights to honing workforce expertise.

On intellectual property, he acknowledged industry concerns that the government was insisting on too much ownership and added that he would like clearer insight into how much the government needs to own for various programs. A newly unveiled House bill to overhaul IT procurement does not do enough to address industry's concerns, according to ITAPS Senior Vice President Trey Hodgkins.

Kendall also addressed another centerpiece of his reform efforts in test and evaluation, which, as a part of Better Buying Power 2.0, the Pentagon has emphasized earlier in the buying cycle. DOD is trying to make its test programs more efficient, he told reporters after his speech, in order to "get the data out before a production decision... that's critical to design stability. So we make the production decision with that information."

The Pentagon's top acquisition official has regularly opened his office door to the top defense contracting firms to provide feedback on their R&D efforts. Among the list of top defense IT vendors are Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Raytheon, according to data from Washington Technology.

"The top six I see every four or five months, if not more often. And the others, it's generally at their request," Kendall told reporters.