USA — Defense Missile Agency Seeks to Cut Costs

WASHINGTON — In an effort to cut costs and boost effi­cien­cy, the Defense Mis­sile Agency is assess­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of com­pet­ing $37 bil­lion in con­tracts, the agency’s direc­tor said.

“There’s sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial there for sav­ings in com­pe­ti­tion,” Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reil­ly told reporters yes­ter­day at a Defense Writ­ers Group break­fast here. 

Many of the agency’s con­tracts in the past were sole-source con­tracts, he explained, includ­ing the ground-based mid­course defense pro­gram. “I have changed that,” he said. “We went back and reassessed that and deter­mined … we’re going to com­pete it.” 

Addi­tion­al­ly, the agency is com­pet­ing the SM3 Block 2B mis­sile, as well as its new satel­lite pro­gram, the pre­ci­sion track­ing space sys­tem, O’Reil­ly said. 

“If we can com­pete, unless there’s an extreme­ly com­pelling rea­son not to, we will com­pete for our con­tracts,” he said. 

The agency also is look­ing to boost effi­cien­cy through con­sol­i­da­tion, the gen­er­al said, and will exam­ine the via­bil­i­ty of pool­ing resources from fed­er­al­ly fund­ed research and devel­op­ment centers. 

The agency’s efforts are in line with a Defense Depart­ment ini­tia­tive to reduce over­head and to elim­i­nate duplica­tive capa­bil­i­ties. Ear­li­er this year, Defense Depart­ment Robert M. Gates tasked the ser­vices to find $100 bil­lion in over­head sav­ings over the next five years. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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