Suchergebnisse

This study compares the best practices of international joint development and domestic development programs through case-study analysis to identify the key variables that contribute to a program's eventual success or failure and to understand the elements that are crucial to managing these programs.

In a time of austerity, the U.S. Department of Defense has drawn budgetary savings primarily from reductions in private-sector contracting. The 2000-2012 edition of this report by National Security Program for Industry and Resources (NSPIR) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) examines this trend as well as its broader implications for defense industrial policy. The report analyzes contracting for products, services, and research and development by the U.S. Department of Defense overall and by key components. The 2000-2012 report investigates seven key facets of the def

Economics scholars and policy-makers in recent years have rung alarm bells about the increasing threat of consolidation and concentration within industrial sectors. This paper examines the importance of industrial consolidation in two ways: first, as a direct relationship between concentration and performance outcomes; and second, as an indirect relationship, where concentration influences performance through reduced competition for government contract business. The paper finds that both increasing consolidation and decreasing competition are associated with an increase in contract cost ceiling breaches but also lower rates of termination. Subsequent stages of research will examine the interrelation of consolidation and competition. ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program

The United States has long recognized the importance of supporting and sustaining an advanced defense industrial base for maintaining global technological superiority. Maintaining a technologically superior industrial base requires a wide vendor pool from which to produce products, conduct research and development (R&D), and provide services for the Department of Defense (DoD). However, the implementation of the 2011 Budget Control Act's (BCA) enforced reductions to the federal budget, as shown in Figure 0-1 below, has prompted Congressional, DoD, government oversight, and industry officials all to express concerns over the health and future of the defense industrial base. Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding associated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is exempt from these caps, but has also declined steeply since 2011. The combined effect of these reductions is referred to as the current defense drawdown, or the drawdown, for this study. CSIS analysis showed that buried within the substantial decline in defense contract obligations were significant variations from sector to sector, with declines varying from catastrophic (Land Vehicles), to steep (Facilities and Construction, Space Systems), to relatively modest (Ships and Submarines). Other sectors suffered a whipsaw effect in which solid business growth suddenly switched to sharp decline (Aircraft). Due to the limitations in the subcontract database, CSIS cannot say whether these companies have exited the industrial base entirely, or still perform work at the lower tiers. The shape of the supporting industrial base was significantly restructured in some sectors, although the size of losing and gaining vendors varied substantially across industry. However, in general, small firms mostly succeeded in holding market share, and the Big 5 saw the composition of their work shift away from R&D and towards products and services.1 The most complex dynamic occurred in competition. Overall effective competition remained fairly steady, but there were notable declines in sectors where competition was already fairly limited (Aircraft; Ordnance and Missiles; Air and Missile Defense). The size of a platform portfolio's decline had little explanatory effect. Different sectors experienced similar levels of decline while experiencing very different trends in the rate of effective competition within the sector. Sectors where the DoD vendor base may strongly overlap with robust commercial markets, such as Facilities and Construction; and Electronics, Communications and Sensors (EC&S); showed little decrease in competition despite large declines in obligations and vendors. ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program