Nancy Y. Moore

The Air Force is trying to increase small-business use and identify industries that have the most potential for increasing small-business utilization. This report examines the Air Force Small-Business Performance Expectations Methodology, with recommendations for improving the methodology accuracy to identify small-business opportunities.

Growing concern about U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) contracts for private-sector services led Congress to mandate the development of the DoD Inventory of Contracted Services to collect information on the activities performed under DoD services contracts. RAND was asked to conduct a review of the system's data, congressional and other stakeholder needs, and whether these needs could be met by other databases.

Acquisition data and information are the foundation for decisionmaking, management, and oversight of weapon-system acquisition programs. The authors review 21 key acquisition data information systems, their origins and uses, and how acquisition data might be improved. They also summarize background on acquisition data; review commercial practices in data management; and offer findings and recommendations to improve quality, access, and use.

This document seeks to help the Air Force develop a strategy for managing supply chain risks during weapon system acquisition and sustainment. The authors review the literature on supply chain risk management and report on a series of interviews they conducted within acquisition, sustainment, and commercial communities. They also describe a prototype methodology that the Air Force may wish to use to identify and manage supply chain risks.

The Department of Defense (DoD) may face challenges as it attempts to maintain its goal of spending about 23 percent of prime-contract dollars for goods and services with small businesses and at the same time apply strategic-sourcing practices to reduce total costs and improve performance and efficiency and in ways that will not conflict with small-business goals.

Existing federal data can identify supply base participation of subcontractors, their socioeconomic status, and the vulnerability of contractors and subcontractors to environmental risks and changes in their federal government prime contract and subcontract revenue. This information can help policymakers understand potential risks in the supply chain. Data on natural-disaster risks can also help identify external sources of supply disruption.

The report seeks to identify barriers that companies face when attempting to enter into contracts with the Department of Defense (DoD), especially when they are not traditional DoD suppliers. To learn more about barriers, the authors interviewed personnel in companies that are in industries of likely interest to DoD and interviewed DoD personnel who work with suppliers.

The report investigates the barriers that service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs) may face when attempting to contract with the federal government and the Department of Defense. The government and DoD goals are to award 3 percent of prime-contract dollars to SDVOSBs but current contracting falls below that level.

The authors review Air Force purchases of 3low-demand2 parts, analyzing how much the Air Force spends on such parts and the types of parts that have a low demand. They then identify and synthesize best commercial purchasing and supply chain management practices used for developing supply strategies for such items, concluding with recommendations for the Air Force to improve its supply strategies for such items.

The report examines the unique purchase needs of the Department of Defense, contract "bundling," subcontracting in professional services and research and development, opportunities in the Small Business Innovation Research and the Mentor-Protege Programs, electronic payment systems, and whether firms "graduate" from the programs or increase in size.

Purchased goods and services are a large and increasingly important proportion of enterprise budgets. The authors review literature describing how private enterprises have addressed this issue. While noting that no one process is likely to fit all circumstances, they offer a set of steps synthesized from the literature for analyzing an enterprise's total spending on commodities and developing purchasing strategies for specific commodities.

This report presents a construct for reorganizing Air Force acquisition and purchasing activities by implementing purchasing and supply management. This report presents a construct for reorganizing Air Force acquisition and purchasing activities using purchasing and supply management (PSM). PSM involves managing not only suppliers but the entire supply network. A PSM demonst ration was chartered and eight initiatives were targeted to help modernize the spares process and ultimately put more spares into the hands of maintainers. The report presents a flexible, springboard design to guide implementation of the process.