Evening star., 1952-09-06
Lovett Launches
Armed Services
Central Buying
Brood Recognizing
For Military Supply
Started With Orders
By John A. Giles

day started the armed forces on
the road to an actual centralized
buying system.
He issued far-reaching orders
defective Monday, which one tor
official explained "lay the founda-
tion for a complete change in
the military supply SvsLems which
have been built up for genera
tions."
The orders come five years after
"uniflcation" of the armed forces
They were issued at the insistence
of the last Congress. which di-
rected that funds for procure
ment, production, warehousing
and distribution of supplies and
equipment be spent only under
regulations issued by the defense
chief. Heretofore, the three mill
tary departments have had their
own separate regulations.
Common Items Affected.
One section of the new regula-
tions attempts to halt costly COM
petitive buying of common COM
mercial type items by eliminating
separate procurement of such ma
terials. The common use stand
ard stock items were described as
those being similar in character" :"
This will eliminate slightly differ
ent specifications as in the case
OF stenographers' chairs for the
separate services.
Mr.. Lovett also called a halt to
empire building" by pro-
hibiting supply system expansion
without his approval.
But the secretary did not order
the single procurement of all
items. He said that single pro-
should be effective only
when it will result in met ad-
vantage to the Department of
Defense as a whole"
Construction Curbed.
The several services were or
dered to use each others COM
mercial and industrial types of
facilities when available. He
stopped construction of such in
stallations except with his ap-
These include warehouses,
motor repair shops, bakeries and
Each service was ordered to
one single supply and
inventory control point for each
specified category of items.
The Army, Navy, Air Force and
Marine Corps were ordered to
uniform and the lowest
stock levels.
Another section Of the order
specifies that Government expan-
sion of facilities would be under
taken only if private financing is
not available. Fiscal experts saw
an effect on the budget for the
next several years under this pro-
vision.
Mr.. Lovett directed that each
department recruit and train
competent military and civilian
personnel to serve in the area of
procurement, production, ware
housing and distribution and re-
lated supply management func-
tions.
Policies for Personnel.
Rotation, promotion and as
signment policies within each mil
itary department will be adapted
to assure the most effective use
Of trained personnel" the order
stated.
The order also started the serv-
ices on a program of building up
an adequate reserve of machine
tools and production equipment to
industry in an emergency.
Another section ordered the
to push the uniform cata-
logue Of common items.
"The highest practical degree of
Standardization of items shall be
achieved through the development
and use of single specifications,
through the elimination of over
tapping and duplicating item
specifications and through the re-
duction of the number of sizes.
kinds and types of generally SIM
lar items" Mr.. Lovett stated.
Packing, packaging. preserva-
ton and marking procedures in|
the three military departments
will be made uniform and
wherever practical will parallel
those used in industry.
Commercial specifications and
standards when practical and eco
nomical will be adopted and inte-
grated in the military specification
and standards systems"