DOD industrial-base study

WASHINGTON - President Trump and Congress are on track to receive recommendations aimed at strengthening the health of the defense-industrial base by mid-April, Jerry McGinn, principal deputy director for the Defense Department’s office of manufacturing and industrial base policy, said Feb. 26 at a New America think-tank event. The guidance is due from a study of the base Trump ordered last July. The study is being led by a government-spanning task force; and more than a dozen working groups have presented interim findings, which identify risks in the industrial base. McGinn declined to discuss those interim findings, but told reporters: “We have a lot of known risk areas.” The groups will recommend ways to cover gaps and weaknesses. Some of those working groups are aligned with subsectors like shipbuilding, ground vehicles or radars, while others match cross-cutting topics like the workforce, cybersecurity and electronics, he said. The second phase of the effort will include a series of simulated stress tests, or war games, for the defense-industrial base, to see how well-prepared certain subsets are to surge in war scenarios. The plan is to rely on existing data, and where there are gaps, conduct targeted focus groups, town halls and listening sessions with industry to learn more, according to the Pentagon. (Source: Defense News 02/26/18)