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Military Acquisition and Procurement

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Maintaining a military that is prepared to face uncertain future security challenges often requires the acquisition and procurement of new and technologically advanced equipment, which is a major expense for any nation. For decades, RAND has researched and evaluated military acquisition and procurement activities, providing essential recommendations to allow military decisionmakers to manage costs and streamline the acquisition process more effectively.

Report
Critical Material Supply Chains Should Be More Resilient
The COVID-19 pandemic and Russian invasion of Ukraine highlight the vulnerabilities of supply chains that are dependent on foreign inputs. How can the U.S. Department of Defense increase the resilience of its supply chains for materials essential to national security?
Dec 15, 2022
Report
Improving Defense Acquisition
Informed by 35 years of RAND research on defense acquisition, a new analysis describes overarching trends that affect DoD's acquisition system, outlines challenges in the acquisition process, and suggests improvements that might help address those challenges.
Jun 16, 2022

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Report
Exploring Differences in Organizational Culture Within the Department of Defense
The authors of this report analyzed the organizational culture of communities within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to understand how the current culture could be characterized and how DoD's culture varies within the department.
Jun 22, 2023
Brochure
Addressing Challenges in Defense Acquisition: Insights from RAND Research
This portfolio of Project AIR FORCE research conducted for the Department of the Air Force and more broadly across RAND offers insights for overcoming acquisition challenges and improving agility within the Defense Acquisition System.
May 1, 2023
Testimony
The Chinese Acquisition Process
Despite great progress over the past 30 years, the People’s Liberation Army research, development, and acquisition system is plagued by many inefficiencies. Based on publicly available research, what are some policy insights Congress can keep in mind as it considers Chinese and U.S. processes?
Apr 13, 2023
Commentary
Venture Capital Gives America a Strategic Edge in the Age of Technology Wars
U.S. early-stage hardware startups are seriously disadvantaged by a persistent lack of financing. Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Defense to spend $75 million to invest in dual-use hardware startups. But the Pentagon has proven reticent to embrace a venture capital–style approach, even though research has demonstrated it is optimal for driving innovation.
Mar 20, 2023
Report
Strengthening the Defense Innovation Ecosystem
The Department of Defense can more effectively harness commercially developed technologies through policies that incentivize and improve coordination and collaboration between defense innovation organizations and traditional acquisition stakeholders.
Mar 7, 2023
Research Brief
Fostering Innovation in Military Technology: Strengthening DoD's Commercial Technology Pipeline
RAND researchers examined how well the Department of Defense is identifying, developing, and transitioning innovative commercial technologies from the private sector to the military and how the defense ecosystem can better support this process.
Mar 7, 2023
Report
The Technology Promotion and Protection Decision Tool: Introduction and User Manual
The authors of this report describe a tool designed to help U.S. Department of Defense decisionmakers select from the many available approaches to promote and protect critical technologies and their associated industrial base.
Jan 31, 2023
Report
Ensuring Mission Assurance While Conducting Rapid Space Acquisition
As the U.S. Space Force pursues rapid acquisition of warfighting capabilities, a key question is whether the streamlining techniques being used to get new space systems to operators quickly create mission assurance vulnerabilities.
Dec 15, 2022
Report
An Enterprise Cost-Effectiveness Approach to Decisionmaking: Improving Analytic Support to Senior Defense Leaders
The authors propose analytic and programmatic frameworks to explore potential cost-per-effect measures, assess those measures with an enterprise cost-effectiveness approach, and chart a roadmap to add a joint focus in future Air Force decisionmaking.
Dec 5, 2022
Report
Department of Defense Acquisition Workforce Analyses: Update Through Fiscal Year 2021
RAND researchers present a descriptive overview of the state of the defense acquisition workforce (AW), describe changes to the AW over time, and identify opportunities for the collection of new data that could support decisionmaking.
Nov 28, 2022
Commentary
Russian Aircraft Keep Crashing. Could Sanctions Be the Cause?
At least six fixed-wing Russian aircraft have crashed over Russian-controlled airspace since September. Sanctions placed on Russia by the West could well be affecting Russia's ability to manufacture and maintain parts needed to keep aircraft safe.
Nov 22, 2022
Report
Improving the Technical Requirements Development Process for Weapon Systems: A Systems-Based Approach for Managers
Oversights during development of technical requirements for new weapon systems can result in cost or schedule overruns or unsuitable operational performance. This report describes a systems-based approach to help improve this process.
Nov 3, 2022
Commentary
Russia's Su-35: Are Its Military Aircraft Exports Headed for a Fall?
Squeezed by sanctions and pressed to replace equipment destroyed in Ukraine, Russia's aerospace sector isn't likely to have combat aircraft to sell, even if it wants to. If purchasing countries start to change their minds and invest in drones and other less-expensive precision guided munitions, the market for Russian combat aircraft might start to rapidly decline.
Oct 20, 2022
Report
Using Metrics to Understand the Performance of the Adaptive Acquisition Framework
The authors of this report identify initial metrics that the U.S. Department of Defense can use to assess whether pathways in the Adaptive Acquisition Framework are achieving their goals.
Oct 5, 2022
Report
A Methodology for Quantifying the Value of Cybersecurity Investments in the Navy
Researchers developed a methodology to assess the value of resource options for U.S. Navy cybersecurity investments. The proposed methodology enables the Navy to rationalize the cost-effectiveness of potential investments within the POM process.
Sep 28, 2022
Report
Systematic Method for Prioritizing Investments in Game-Changing Technologies: The Evaluation and Comparison Process Framework
This report summarizes a framework and process to characterize and compare potential game-changing technologies based on likely operational advantage, given specific technological capabilities, challenges of implementation and cost.
Jul 18, 2022
Report
Contractor Risk and Performance Indicators: Prototype Functional Specification and Developer Document
This report presents the technical design and architecture of a RAND-developed software prototype that assesses relative contractor risks in Department of the Air Force acquisition contracts and programs as described in two companion reports.
May 16, 2022
Report
Early Predictive Indicators of Contractor Performance: A Data-Analytic Approach
This report presents initial insights and approaches in exploring and prototyping methods to identify potential contractor performance risks for the Department of the Air Force earlier than would be typically reported via traditional methods.
May 12, 2022

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RAND Topic:
Military Acquisition and Procurement

Research conducted by

Researcher Spotlight

Bradley M. Knopp

Senior International / Defense Researcher

Bradley Knopp is a senior international and defense researcher at the RAND Corporation. Since joining RAND in 2013, he has worked across all four of RAND's federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs). He has worked on projects for the intelligence community, including most…
Lisa Pelled Colabella

Senior Operations Researcher

Lisa Pelled Colabella is a senior operations researcher at RAND. She has led projects on Army logistics topics (e.g., fleet management, operating & support cost estimating, sustainment data quality, equipping strategy, and implications of emerging technologies) as well as projects for the Air…

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