For nearly 60 years, the Department of Defense has been engaged in a continuous process of self assessment to identify and improve the way it acquires weapons systems. Frequent major acquisition reform initiatives have responded to concerns that acquisition costs are too high, that the Department is buying the wrong things, or that the process is too slow.
The need to review the process and to institute change has become very obvious to the acquisition community. The House and Senate Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Authorization Committee Reports addressed concerns about the ability of the Department's Acquisition System to develop and deliver required capabilities when needed and at predictable costs. The reports further stated that addressing symptoms one program or one process at a time is unlikely to result in substantial improvement.
This comprehensive review was conducted to form the basis of the conclusion that integrating all of the elements of the Acquisition System is essential. From these observations, 42 issue areas have been identified upon which to focus attention. In addition to assessing each of the Defense Acquisition processes and their performance, specific integrated assessments have been developed and are grouped into six broad areas: Organization, Workforce, Budget, Requirements, Acquisition and Industry. These assessments resulted in the Panel's proposals for performance improvements and recommendations to establish specific criteria within specific timeframes.
