The Department of Defense wants to reduce how much time it takes to award contracts for weapons systems, but has too much of a “limited understanding of how long it currently takes” to award a contract as it is, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday.
Without “a DOD-wide strategy for what information should be collected” in place, the GAO said that there was no way for the department to determine if its reduction efforts would be successful.
In an analysis of 129 weapons systems contracts awarded by the DOD, it was found that contracts were processed in time frames between less than a month and more than four years.
“Although some DOD and industry officials stated that contract value could affect contract award time frames, GAO observed a wide range of time intervals and did not observe any patterns based on this characteristic,” the report said.
The DOD “concurred” with the report’s recommendation for a system to be put in place to collect information and “assess contract award time frames.
