BREAKING THE ICE OF ACQUISITION REFORM

In the spring of 1992 the Naval Sea Systems Command was forced to canc el the solicitation for the Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker replacement d ue to affordability issues. Yet less than a year later a contract was awarded for detailed design and construction of a Polar Icebreaker. To accomplish this, a team was organized in April of 1992 to rethink the technical and programmatic approach for acquisition. A number of the approaches used have been included in the new Department of Defense (D oD) acquisition policy statement of June 1994. Because of the innovati ve nature of the approach, the Program Office conducted a lessons lear ned review by revisiting program documentation and interviewing the ma jor players. This paper examines the process through which changes wer e made and the rationale for them. It finishes with a summary of some of the more important lessons learned by the project team both during the redevelopment of the solicitation and the first phase of the contr act.