BUS401 Management Leadership

Describe several historical legislative acts that have institutionalized better business practices within the DoD acquisition community.

Introduction:

The force unit and the financial infrastructure have witnessed a significant change following the conclusion of the cold war alongside with its associated industrial partners. US government solely concentrated on to reduction of deficit and improvement related to the operational efficiencies in relevance to government agencies. Recapitulations regarding the single industrial standards involved helped them to acquire efficient specifications to develop their business and manufacturing systems through the reconstructions in acquisition methodologies. This report is a representative of the decisions and acts to initiate a business evolution in DoD community (Chinworth, 2000).

Discussion:

The degradation in the availability of resources caused a limitation in the maintenance of the weapons in the US force Unit with disadvantage of decreasing funding.  The process of reformation of the acquisitions was objective towards reducing the costs and improving the operational management through some major initiatives, which would be discussed in the upcoming sections of the report.

Firstly, the Government Performance Reform Act, established in 1993, focused on the multi-year strategic objectives and the annual targets and required the involvement of federal agencies for the allocation procedures (Grimmett & Lange, 2012). Secondly, the Federal Acquisition streamlining act formed in 1994 had the main objective to provide wider authorities to the agencies for the purchase of commercial commodities. This act allowed the procurement officers to purchase discretionary commodities without public competitions, which might be stated as a major legislative change. Thirdly, the federal acquisition reform act well stabilized in 1995, which was designated to simplify the procurement procedures by raising thresholds related to sole-source procurements (Grimmett & Lange, 2012). Next to this is the Information Technology reform act activated in 1995 is one of the crucial legislations helping the government to link their technological plans, which required a chief information officer to manage the agency missions and goals.

Next relevant act was the reformation of Military Unit features, which affected the research and development departments and simultaneously, the production strategies in DoD community to support the acquisition processes in multiple ways. This included the support towards development of the weapon system for the military users, determination of achieving any long-term logistic requirements for complex weapon systems along with the providence of consistent measures in the same. Next, from the business point of view, to provide profitability for the defense-weapon contractors and finally, the public accountability is maintained, simultaneously, prevented the abuses (Schlossberg, 2012).

Despite initiatives, it was until that the secretary in defense, ensured a directive to prioritize the commercial standards or features regarding the purchases until a specific justification is mentioned regarding military specifications, which initiated major changes by shifting the responsibilities towards industries rather than government citing with the available warranties.

Another crucial initiate was the Single Process Initiate (SPI) major effectiveness surrounding the shift towards commercial standardizations (Kim & Lu, 2013). Both the acquisition configuration and SPI in accordance to the DoD prospects, the importance lies in the capability to minimize costing on the weapon system with the reduction i.n the military specializations. Another important aspect was the exemption of rules and regulations that limit the commercial practices causing opposition to common industry standardizations (Chinworth, 2000). These practices ensured higher level of integration between the civil and the military industrial units in US helping in the research and development involved with the DoD community.  

Conclusion:

Reductions regarding the system purchases witnessed a persistent graph throughout several years (Chinworth, 2000). Specific in industrial interests have been influenced by SPI propositions, management strategies for the improvements and developments that prove beneficial for the industries involving the efforts from the contractors. DoD have been impacted with limitations due to preset assumptions regarding the emergence of a more competitive circumstance, for which the DoD community in not ready. On analysis, one suggestive measure though, could be to sustain energy levels in its acquisition reformations.

References:

Chinworth, M. W. (2000). Acquisition Reform in the United States: Assessing Change. Defense Analysis, 16(2), 165-183.

Grimmett, R. F., & Lange, R. S. (2012, September). Intelligence Authorization Legislation: Status and Challenges. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON DC CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE.

Kim, E. H., & Lu, Y. (2013). Corporate governance reforms around the world and cross-border acquisitions. Journal of Corporate Finance, 22, 236-253.

Schlossberg, G. (2012). How Congress Cleared the Bases: A Legislative History of BRAC. Journal of Defense Communities, 1, 1-12.