13 research outputs found
The Yoder Three-tier Model for Optimal Planning and Execution of Contingency Contracting
No full textAcquisition research (Graduate School of Business & Public Policy)Contingency efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and several other countries in the last few years have been subjected to close scrutiny and critique. Contingency Contracting operations are increasingly the major source of support and provisioning in forward theaters, especially in light of reductions in organic (non-contracted) support capabilities. Recently, theater combatant commanders have come to rely on contingency contracting officers to support coalition forces, and concurrently, to achieve a transformation of the economic landscape essential for achieving theater objectives. But, critics of recent operations cite deficiencies in DoD's ability to effectively and efficiently conduct a coordinated contracting support effort that integrates the combatant commander's theater objectives with the myriad stakeholders deemed essential for success. Can we, the military, achieve better results? The author contends that with proper understanding of integrated planning and execution, contingency contracting operations can, and will, provide significant leverage for achieving the combatant commander's objectives.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited
Green acquisition gap analysis of the United States Air Force Operational Contracting Organizations
No full textMBA Professional ReportIn this thesis, we explore the goals and requirements of green procurement in order to assess the Air Force's degree of success with incorporating the Defenses (DoD's) Green Procurement Program (GPP) into its procurement process. This thesis provides an outline of the federal policies and guidance regarding green procurement, including Executive Order 13514 (2009) and relevant parts of the Federal Acquisition Regulations. We examine the Air Force's progress towards a more environmentally friendly process, measured by the metrics set forth in the DoD GPP. To evaluate these metrics, we conducted an analysis to determine if the Air Force is implementing environmental considerations to the maximum extent practical. This analysis relied on the use of the Green Acquisition Gap Analysis (GAGA) model, which is a unique framework that we developed. The GAGA model fuses the personnel, platform, and protocol pillars of the Mandatory Pillars for Integrative Success (Yoder, 2010) framework with the Contract Management Process framework, which dissects the six segments of the contracting process: procurement planning, solicitation planning, the solicitation, source selection, contract administration, and contract closeout or termination (Rendon, 2007). Further, in order to document best practices for Air Force-wide dissemination, we identified the leading Air Force installations through our extensive research and collaboration with key leadership.US Air Force (USAF) authorshttp://archive.org/details/greencquisitiong109451059
Commercial style market research for Navy activities
No full textThis thesis investigates the nature and functions of commercial style market research. It examines the issues and barriers which face Navy contracting personnel should commercial style market research be assimilated and employed at contracting activities. It specifically considers an acquisition environment characterized by a downsized infrastructure and rapidly changing technological environment. Commercial entities have been successfully using market research to make better qualified business decisions. Can commercial style market research be successfully applied to Navy acquisition activities? The conclusion is that Navy activities can and should use the successful market research practices of commercial business. However, the Navy manager must be cognizant of the potential barriers to effective and efficient market research which face the Navy as well as the commercial manager. The barriers must be overcome and/or their effects mitigated in order to successfully employ market research. This thesis explores barriers and possible solutions.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.Lieutenant, United States NAvyhttp://archive.org/details/commercialstylem109453976
Engagement versus disengagement: how structural & commercially-based regulatory changes have increased government risks in Federal Acquisitions
No full textAcquisition research (Graduate School of Business & Public Policy)The purpose of this working paper is to highlight the challenges and associated risks Federal contracting officers face while conducting business under commerciallybased contracting legislation and, with concurrent reductions in the acquisition workforce, the potential risks these changes place on the taxpayer. It is the researcher's contention that the past decade-long wave of acquisition work-force reductions and commercially-inspired acquisition reforms has created a responsive and progressive business environment. Yet, it has done so at the cost of the Federal government becoming less engaged. In fact, the government has become disengaged in key oversight and management functions. This disengagement may be exposing Federal contracting officers and taxpayers to greater financial, programmatic and performance risks. The working paper will highlight recent legislation and its impact on determining fair and reasonable pricing for commercial item acquisitions and highlight workforce changes which negatively impact regulatory oversight and management capability, and will make specific recommendations for improving performance and reducing risks in Federal acquisitions and contracting.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited
DOD Contract Files: Paper versus Digital
No full textSome government agencies have moved to electronic contract files, while others retain paper-based contract files. Policy promoting electronic contract files exists; however, regulation has not been enacted to mandate its use. The primary research objective is to determine why agencies are hesitant to adopt paperless contract files. The secondary research objectives are to determine what can be learned about contract files from various contracting activities and whether the Department of Defense (DoD) plans to provide guidance for contract files going forward. Data were collected from the DoD, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP), the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, and a civilian agency via survey. The data and findings indicate that agencies that have adopted electronic contract files have realized efficiencies. The data and findings also indicate that agencies that retain paper contract files have concerns regarding conversion to electronic contract files. The investigator finds that the issues uncovered regarding conversion to electronic contract files requires resolution to enable all agencies to move to electronic contract files successfully. Further research is recommended to resolve the issues identified and allow DPAP to mandate the use of electronic contract files.Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Progra
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History in the literary imagination: the telling of Nongqawuse and the Xhosa Cattle-Killing in South African literature and culture (1891-1937)
No full textThis thesis takes as its subject the millenarian movement of 1856–7, commonly known as the Xhosa Cattle-Killing. My project examines a range of literary representations of this seminal moment in South African history: novels, plays, and short stories in English or English translation. The period under consideration encompasses the earliest literary responses to the Cattle-Killing and includes critical historical-political moments such as: the incorporation of the last independent black territory into the Cape Colony, the creation of the Union of South Africa, the passing of the Land Act, the enfranchisement of white women and the enactment of Hertzog’s ‘native bills’. The project consists of close, contextual readings, and the approach is cross-cultural and interdisciplinary.
In this dissertation I examine the meaning that has accrued to the Cattle-Killing, and the role that literary accounts have played in interpreting and defining this pivotal event in the historical consciousness of their sometimes considerable audiences. In some cases, these creative works have anticipated trends in formal historiography and suggested new ways to interrogate the evidence. But the accounts do more than creatively reconstruct the past. They are also implicated in their respective presents and use the Cattle-Killing to ‘write out’ contemporaneous concerns: be it female emancipation, ‘native education’ or Black Nationalism. The various manifestations of the Cattle-Killing story chart not only the shifting ‘truth’ of the event but also the ways in which it has been made relevant and useable for different communities at various points in South Africa’s history. To read these accounts of the Cattle-Killing, I argue, is to ‘read’ the history of this period.
While taking as its subject an event from 150 years ago, and literary responses from shortly after, my project contributes to wider, on-going conversations relating to history as a field of argument and literature as a social and historical force. A related aim is to contribute to the revaluation of early South African literature, which has been neglected or homogenized in recent years. My dissertation seeks to recuperate and complicate by representing a variety of subject positions and resuscitating voices discarded or forgotten
Development of surveillance technology and risk of abuse of economic information. An appraisal of technologies for political control. Echelon report. PE 168.184
No full textThe role of transmission pricing in electricity industry restructuring : the case of Saudi Arabia.
No full textAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN048790 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo
Artillery and Warfare 1945-2025
No full textFor millennia battles were essentially affairs of linear encounter. From the 10th
Century to the 20th Century, artillery generally fired directly in the two dimensional
plane,limiting potential effects. The development of indirect fire changed this ,
two-dimensional model. Warfare became not so much a matter of linear encounter
as one of engagement as cross and throughout an area; and artillery dominated land
operations in both the First and Second World Wars as a result.
Firepower was subsequently often applied in even greater weights, but its effects
were frequently excessive and high-value targets proved elusive. During the Cold
War in Europe,the importance of field artillery wanded relative to other arms.
Artillery could only regain its utility by acquiring the highest-value targets and
engaging them effectively with the appropriate degree of force in time and space true
precision, as opposed to mere accuracy at a point. Improvements in target
acquisition and accuracy will enable land systems once more to engage targets
effectively throughout the battlespace with implications for warfare analogous to
those precipitated by the introduction of indirect fire a century ago.
Land operations will become increasingly three-dimensional and Joint. The effects
of fire will increasingly be applied in, not merely via, the third dimensions, since
targets themselves will increasingly be located, not just on the area of a battlefield,
but in the volume of three-dimensional battlespace with values of indetermined
by considerations of the fourth dimension, time. Fire, lethal and non-lethal, will
also be targeted in other less tangible dimensions such as cyber-space and new
types of 'virtual counterfire' will also emerge in the forms of legal and moral
restraint. All will be viewed through the lens of perceptions.
The burgeoning of firepower from all sources now becomes the spur for changes in the relationship between the land and air components, mindful of those novel factors that will increasingly inhibit the application of that firepower
An ethnography of students' extensive use of computers and digital technologies within further education classrooms
No full textThis thesis analyses how the extensive use of networked computers, which were the primary
classroom learning resource for three Level 3 cohorts of Further Education students, impacted on
how the students approached the academic elements of their coursework. Using an ethnographic
methodology the students were followed as they progressed over one academic year, to identify
how they engaged with their learning and used the technologies over this period. The study of
students’ classroom academic and literacy practices when using the new digital technologies of computers and the Internet as resources in post-compulsory education is a relatively neglected area. At a time when there is the continued call for the increased use of these technologies across the curricula, this ethnography offers an insight into students’ responses to the technologies and how these significant educational resources can also divide the classroom into both educational and social-leisure spaces. What became apparent over the year was students’ superficial level of engagement with online research resources and how that information was then processed. Students’ use of software to manipulate digital text bypassed any evidencing of intermediary cognitive processes, therefore at times idea generation, critical development and level of ownership became challenging to identify. Notably, students’ extensive use of computers resulted in their gaze being primarily directed to their
computer monitors and despite the sociality amongst students for non-educational activities, both in and out of the classrooms, the benefits of peer discussion and interaction for learning was absent due to this level of academic isolation. Students’ use of the technologies for either educational or social-leisure use was reflective of the learning conditions and what affected their levels of motivation and attention. For a number of students, their excessive use of the classroom computers to access online social-leisure resources
came at a cost to their grades and their ambitions for progression had to be reduced. There is no doubting the value of computers and the Internet as classroom learning resources, however, this research identifies that they are certainly not a quick panacea for education. The evidence illustrates that to attain the potential they offer, there needs to be relative adjustments to pedagogy and learning cultures and how students conceptualise the space of computer-resourced classrooms
