Air Force likely to restructure contracts

Holy crap it's a miracle! Someone in the Pentagon is showing intelligence.

The Air Force is seriously considering price caps on all future contracts, that when reached, will require them to take a second look at requirements, and what they really do and don't need.

Currently it hasn't been applied, but would start from FY15-FY20, the budget items are being submitted now. As they approached the cap, they would go to the managers, and look at what they really needed, and what requirements they would be willing to lose, to save money.

The LRIP 7 F-35 contract is a fixed price contract, and all procurements in that program going forward will be fixed price.

The Air Force is considering placing price caps on major procurement programs — that when reached— will force Pentagon buyers to rethink requirements and make tradeoffs in favor of affordability, a senior civilian with the service said Sept. 26.

Richard W. Lombardi, deputy assistant secretary for acquisition integration with the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, said defense officials are giving more weight to long-term affordability as they lay out a series of spending plans that will be published in coming months.

“We have in the past launched off on programs without thinking about long-term affordability,” Lombardi told a gathering hosted by the Air Force Association in Arlington, Va. Acquisition officials must consider “what we are willing to pay for something and what we will stop funding in order to pay for it,” he added.

Lombardi manages the acquisition staff organization charged with planning, managing and analyzing the Air Force's research-and-development, and acquisition investment budget.

Those ideas will likely be enshrined in the programs objective memorandum for fiscal years 2015 to 2020, which is currently being drafted, he said. Submissions to the office of the secretary of defense for that spending plan were due Sept. 23.

Source

All I have to say is "it's about damned time".

About time someone does something smart. I have a price cap for stupid stuff the government does but that cap still is over flowing.