Report: DOD Should Reach Out to Small Firms A congressional panel says the Defense Department should broaden its outreach to small businesses in an effort to foster innovation and increase competition. The House Armed Services Committee’s Panel on Defense Acquisition Reform included the recommendation as part of its yearlong review of DOD contracting. Its final report says, ‘[T]he Panel believes that the Department can enhance competition and gain access to more innovative technology by developing measures to utilize more of the industrial base, especially small and mid-tier businesses.” The panel said FedBizOpps listings alone will not attract new and innovative companies to defense work. “[T]he simple posting of a solicitation notice on a website does not represent a concerted effort to push information about potential contracts to relevant firms. The Panel believes the Department would benefit by utilizing resources from the Department of Commerce, Small Business Administration, General Service Administration, and the private sector to directly notify firms in relevant industrial classifications of upcoming contract awards. A small investment in additional outreach to industry could demonstrate a large return in increased competition, lower prices, and innovation.” However, the group made no recommendation regarding size standards. DOD officials have previously called for increases in some standards, because military contracts are often so large and complex that they cannot be handled by companies that qualify as small. The department has never achieved its 23% small business contracting goal. In its broader recommendations, the panel said DOD should emphasize performance and accountability by both government acquisition personnel and contractors, especially in service contracts. “The system remains structured primarily for the acquisition of weapon systems at a time when services represent a much larger share of the Department’s acquisitions,” the report says. It said the department’s acquisition system is “particularly poorly designed” for IT contracting. Only 16% of IT projects are completed on time and on budget, and nearly one-third are canceled before completion. The panel found that DOD usually takes 48-60 months to deliver new IT systems, compared with 12-18 months in the private sector. “In an environment where technology is obsolete after 18 months, defense IT systems are typically two to three generations out of date by the time they are delivered,” the group concluded. “What is needed is a cultural change that emphasizes the capture and tracking of metrics integral to the IT acquisition process and additional tools and resources for this purpose.” The panel’s recommendations also focused on the need for expansion and improvement of the acquisition workforce and for improvements in developing requirements. It said requirements for services contracts are often poorly written by base commanders or operational commanders who are not trained to do that kind of work. It found that the process of setting requirements for acquisition “is so critical to the Department’s mission” that it should be a top priority for management. The group recommended that the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should lead the effort.