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Panel #5: Characterizing the Acquisition Workforce Naval Postgraduate School Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

The purpose of this research was to conduct a comparative analysis of an existing Department of Defense (DOD) contract for commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) special operational equipment (SOE) items with commercial e-commerce portals to determine if there were certain categories of commercial items that should be purchased through the online marketplace. Specifically, the research analysis compared a specific set of COTS SOE items purchased by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Troop Support through its tailored logistics support program (TLSP) contracts with the same set of items available for purchase through commercial e-commerce portals. The comparative analysis between DOD contracts and commercial e-commerce portals pinpointed benefits, disadvantages, and limitations of the implementation of commercial e-commerce portals for the procurement of COTS SOE. ARP Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

MBA Professional Report The military spends resources ensuring individual warfighter equipment is technologically advanced and operationally effective/suitable. Certain types of warfighter equipment, specifically durable goods, have long service lives; therefore, services cannot afford to replace all warfighter equipment when advances in capability or weight reduction are achieved. However, like pre-positioned stocks of heavy combat equipment, having stocks of modern warfighter equipment in a non-contingent environment ready for early deployers ensures readiness and buys time for industrial base ramp-up. The Deployer Equipment Bundle (DEB) concept would outfit early deploying brigade combat teams (BCTs) to the next major contingency with the most modern, lifesaving equipment available, providing sufficient buffer stock to enable the industrial base to ramp up to full capacity. This concept procures organizational clothing and individual protective equipment (OCIE) and personal protective equipment (PPE) for immediate capability needs and includes flame-resistant (FR) uniforms. The DEB concept increases flexibility while reducing operational risks to the Army. We found that an effective implementation of a DEB concept should leverage the best practices of the Army Rapid Field Initiative (RFI) operations, Army Pre-positioned Stocks (APS) operations, and United States Marine Corps Individual Clothing and Combat Equipment (ICCE) operations. In addition, our research identified the barriers and challenges to the acceptance of the DEB concept: aversion to change, ignorance to new concepts, Army culture, and trust. http://archive.org/details/innovativedefens1094555594 Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy Captain, United States Army Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.