DBB: Rework future vendor contracts

The Defense Business Board (DBB) issued a series of recommendations Jan. 22 calling on the Pentagon to cut $125 billion in spending through 2020 with reductions in services and reworking vendor contracts, early retirements and reductions in administrative costs. The report, at the direction of Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work’s October 2014 memo, also calls on DBB to form a Task Group to recommend changes to DOD’s current plans for modernization. DBB released its findings a week before FY 2016’s defense budget was due to be released. The early retirements, of more than 1 million, were identified in the fields of human resources, health care, financial, logistics, acquisition and property management fields. The biggest cost initiatives ID’d are: From $49 billion to $89 billion through "rigorous vendor negotiations" for contracted goods and services; $23 billion to $53 billion through retirement and attrition of defense civilians and contractors; and $5 billion to $9 billion in IT data center consolidation. The study also includes deep reviews of its business processes with Lockheed Martin, Pepsi, Hewlett Packard and IBM. (Source: Defense News, 01/25/15) Gulf Coast Shipbuilding Note: A Lockheed Martin consortium designs and builds the Freedom class variant of the Littoral Combat Ship at a shipyard in Marinette, Wis. The second LCS variant, an Independence class, is built at Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Ala. Lockheed also produces multi-variants of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Eglin AFB, Fla., is home to initial F-35 maintenance and pilot training.