Better Buying Power 3.0 Initiatives On Their Way

We've been following DoD's Better Buying Power (BBP) Initiatives for several years. BBP 1.0 introduced in 2010 included initiatives to

• Target affordability and control cost growth
• Incentivize productivity and innovation in industry (tie profits into performance)
• Promote real competition
• Improve tradecraft in services acquisition
• Reduce non-productive processes and bureaucracy (most contractors would have a lot of ideas for this one)

In late 2012, the Department introduced BBP 2.0. The initiatives in BBP 2.0 included:

• Achieve affordable programs
• Control costs throughout the product lifecycle
• Incentivize productivity and innovation in industry and Government
• Eliminate unproductive processes and bureaucracy
• Promote effective competition
• Improve tradecraft in acquisition of services
• Improve the professionalism of the total acquisition workforce

Last week, the DoD announced the projected release of BBP 3.0;, the latest iteration of initiatives designed to achieve more with less. Although the specific initiatives within BBP 3.0 will not be announced until October, the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics indicated that the focus will be on the "product" side - moving innovation into the hands of the war-fighter. Some of the initiatives include:

• Achieving affordable programs and dominant capabilities
• Providing greater incentive to the commercial sector to better leverage technology
• Introducing a variety of contract types, business skills, incentive structures and different ways of doing business to be mutually beneficial to government and industry.
• Prototyping at the system level to advance technology, preserve design teams and reduce lead time to future capabilities
• Ensure insertion points in programs to bring new technology in as a product in service over its lifetime
• Emphasize better feedback to industry
• Build stronger cooperation and partnerships 

A big difference in 3.0 from the other iterations is a focus on cooperation between the Government and contractors. That would be a good thing. One initiative that BBP 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 have in common is "affordability" and "controlling costs". That's really the bottom line when it comes to procurement.