Army Acquisition Management: A Quest for Excellence or a Tilting of Windmills.

摘要

In 1986, the President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management (Packard Commission) published A Quest for Excellence, Final Report to the President. Subsequently, National Security Directive 219 directed implementation of the recommendations in the report and the Goldwater-Nichols Act incorporated many of the recommendations into law. This study examines one aspect of the Commission's report, Acquisition Organization and Procedures, and addresses how well the Army has implemented the spirit as well as the content of the recommendations. A structured questionnaire was sent to the 318 personnel who had served as Program/Project/Product Managers since employed by the government in November 1990. A total of 255 responded. The study concluded that neither the spirit nor the content of the Packard Commission recommendations has been implemented by the Army. The major findings include: the organizational structures and procedures recommended by the Commission added to, rather than replaced, the old way of doing business; the changes neither added stability, nor streamlined reporting; better and earlier coordination was found to be needed between the acquisition and testing communities; and the inability of the war fighter to defend requirements precludes effective acquisition reform.