Issues with Access to Acquisition Data and Information in the Department of Defense: Doing Data Right in Weapon System Acquisition

Moore, Nancy Young; McKernan, Megan

doi:10.7249/rr1534

Cited by 3 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…We assessed the DoD against these practices by comparing the DoD's status (as identified in prior research [Riposo et al, 2015;McKernan et al, 2016McKernan et al, , 2017McKernan et al, , 2018 and recent DoD information-management meetings against these best practices. Comparison is straightforward, identifying whether key private-sector practices are being used by the DoD.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Technological improvements have helped the DoD improve data collection efficiency, quality, aggregation, ease of access and use, archiving, and analysis, among other characteristics; however, many information systems are difficult for users to navigate effectively and can take years to fully understand. Most systems are built for reporting, not analysis (McKernan et al, 2017).…”

Section: Mature Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A centralized system with consistent formats helps improve certain aspects of data consistency and quality. Also, analytic tools are layered on top of the data portions of some of the IT system architecture with varying levels of maturity (McKernan et al, 2017). These analytic tools go beyond dashboards by enabling both custom and predefined analyses.…”

Section: Mature Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing Department of Defense Use of Data Analytics and Enabling Data Management to Improve Acquisition Outcomes

Antón¹,

McKernan²,

Munson³

et al. 2019

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Limited Print and Electronic Distribution RightsThis document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mature Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mature Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Assessing Department of Defense Use of Data Analytics and Enabling Data Management to Improve Acquisition Outcomes

Antón¹,

McKernan²,

Munson³

et al. 2019

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“…Traditional acquisition oversight data are collected to promote transparency in spending, manage costs, report on defense spending, achieve small-business goals, manage fraud, improve decisionmaking, and archive acquisition programs (McKernan et al, 2017). The data systems designed to achieve these goals were developed in response to different policy directives, congressional mandates, and requirements in DoD Instruction (DoDI) 5000.02.…”

Section: Contractor Risks In Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The data systems designed to achieve these goals were developed in response to different policy directives, congressional mandates, and requirements in DoD Instruction (DoDI) 5000.02. McKernan et al, 2017, found the disjointed nature of these data sources can make it challenging for acquisition professionals to synthesize and achieve the goals that these data systems were meant to meet. Additionally, many of the data systems, especially the monthly reporting ones, impose a reporting burden on the contractor and the program office.…”

Section: Contractor Risks In Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Predictive Indicators of Contractor Performance: A Data-Analytic Approach

2022

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Early indication of potential contractor performance risks and contract execution issues is critical for proactive acquisition management. When contractors are in danger of not meeting contractual performance goals, Department of the Air Force (DAF) acquisition management might not be fully aware of the shortfall until, for example, a schedule deadline is missed, government testing indicates a system's poor technical performance, or costs exceed expectations.In this report, the authors describe a new way to apply data science to a variety of disparate and disjointed government and external data sources to highlight the relative contractor performance risks and provide earlier indicators of performance issues in DAF acquisition contracts and programs than would normally be achieved in traditional formal reporting. Although the authors cannot definitively state this is the optimal approach, this method seeks to produce risk and performance indicators earlier than current information sources and metrics do. This is the final report for Phase II of an effort to test the approach outlined here by building a prototype that uses actual data to calculate contractor risk measures and performance metric values relative to those of their peers, the available contractor base, or fixed thresholds, presenting outliers to prototype users for further human investigation and assessment. This report summarizes the authors' findings, including (1) a taxonomy of contractor relative risks, (2) leading indicators of performance, (3) relevant data sources, (4) risk measures and equations, and (5) a prototype that implements some of the risk measures and equations using real data sources. Note that Phase I focused on relative risk related to enabling factors for contractor performance as opposed to those related to the design and technology involved in the delivered product or service. In Phase II, we are employing new types of leading indicator metrics to gain earlier insights into potential execution issues.The intent of our process implemented in the accompanying prototype is to highlight areas for additional attention. It is incumbent on the acquisition professional to then focus appropriate management attention on this area based on its relevance to the program and the level of risk deemed acceptable to the government. This research should be of interest to acquisition professionals and leadership who are looking for ways to improve acquisition performance through early identification of potential relative contractor risks and execution problems to inform active program management and mitigation of risks. The prototype should be of interest to acquisition officials (from program managers to milestone decision authorities) to help them access more data in an easy-tounderstand way so they can focus their limited time on areas that require increased management attention. This approach should be useful during any phase of the acquisition process-from pre-Materiel Development Decision through disposal.

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