The Department of Defense announced today that members of the Business Initiative Council (BIC) have approved two more broad sets of initiatives designed to improve business operations across the Department of Defense and enhance support to the warfighter.
Potential efficiencies in both rounds focused on stringent legislative requirements, cumbersome directives, and lengthy staffing processes, which the DoD workforce deals with on a daily basis. While BIC estimates of savings are not finalized, anticipated savings for these initiatives are well over $100 million dollars per year. In addition to dollar savings, the benefits from the BIC-approved initiatives include reductions in cycle time, improved customer service/performance, streamlined procedures, and increased flexibility, to name a few. Both rounds of initiatives addressed specific areas of personnel management, logistics/readiness, corporate operations and acquisition management.
The council, established and presided over by Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Pete Aldridge, is composed of the military service secretaries and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The BIC reports directly to the Senior Executive Council, whose members include the secretary and deputy secretary of Defense, the service secretaries, and the under secretary of Defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics.
The BIC was launched in July to implement bureaucracy-reducing and/or money-saving opportunities in the business practices of the Department of Defense. This is core to Secretary Rumsfeld's broader "Battle on Bureaucracy" campaign, announced on Sept. 10, 2001, and complements the President's Freedom to Manage Act of 2001, introduced into the Senate on November 1.
"We on the BIC are excited to have this tremendous opportunity to transform the way we do business and inculcate the best business practices into the DoD culture, in support of the secretary's initiative," said Aldridge.
The list of new initiatives is on the web at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2002/d20020227bic.pdf .
