ABSTRACT
As DoD spending on services has increased over the last 10 years, numerous published Government Accountability Ofce (GAO) and Department of Defense Inspector General (DoDIG) reports have cited deciencies in multiple areas of the contracting process. Between 2001 and 2009, the GAO issued 16 reports citing deciencies in the acquisition of services. Between FY2003 and FY2008, the DoDIG issued 142 reports citing weaknesses in the acquisition and contract administration process (DoDIG, 2009). Contract management has been on the GAO high-risk list since 1992, revealing the difculties in meeting services procurement, cost, schedule, and performance objectives (Apte et al., 2010). Decient process areas found by both the GAO and DoDIG included market research, contract type, requirements management, project management, contractor oversight, and personnel training (Apte et al., 2010). These cited problems were compounded by an acquisition workforce that has remained the same size since 2001 while spending services have doubled over the same period (GAO, 2009b). The DoD’s contract management process capabilities have also been found to be lacking in all phases of the contracting process. The contract administration and the contract closeout phases, specically, have even lower process capability than the other phases.
