The military and political changes occurring after the Cold War era have resulted in the need for change in U.S. military forces and the acquisition system that supports them. DOD’s acquisition reform program was established to reduce acquisition costs while maintaining technological superiority. The goal is to move away from buying items made to comply with unique DOD specifications, terms, and conditions and toward buying commercial products or products made using commercial practices. The intent is to further integrate the U.S. defense and commercial industrial bases. DOD’s use of military-unique specifications and standards has been cited in several reports as a major barrier to this acquisition reform goal. In general, “military specifications” describe the physical and or operational characteristics of a product and “military standards” detail the processes and materials to be used to make the product. The standards can also describe how to manage the manufacturing and testing of a part. For example, a specification might describe the kind of wire to be used in an electrical circuit and a standard might describe how the wire is to be fastened in a circuit and what tests should be conducted on the circuit. Military specifications and standards, collectively referred to as “milspecs,” are a major part of DOD’s Standardization Program, which seeks to limit variety in purchased items by stipulating certain design details. Some principal purposes for milspecs have been to (1) ensure interoperability between products, (2) provide products that can perform in extreme conditions, (3) protect against contractor fraud, and (4) promote greater opportunities for competition among contractors. Many studies over the past 20 years have attempted to redirect the milspec system. In general, these studies have recognized that although milspecs are required, DOD’s milspec process was complex, and often rigid, and blocked the use of commercial products and processes. These studies have repeatedly presented a number of the same issues and recommendations. Although DOD has made some progress in decreasing reliance on milspecs, in August 1993, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Reform directed that a process action team (PAT) be established to revisit milspec reform. The PAT was to develop (1) a comprehensive plan to ensure that DOD describes its needs in ways that permit maximum reliance on existing commercial items, practices, processes, and capabilities, and (2) an assessment of the impact of the recommended actions on the acquisition process. The April 1994 PAT report entitled Blueprint for Change: Report of the Process Action Team on Military Specifications and Standards is the foundation for DOD’s current milspec reform program. Appendix I lists the 24 recommendations from the report and highlights the 13 recommendations identified as principal ones. On June 23, 1994, DOD published an implementation plan for the reform program. In a June 29, 1994, memorandum, the Secretary of Defense officially accepted the PAT report and directed the services and DOD agencies to take immediate action to implement the recommendations. These three documents—the report, the plan, and the memorandum—are the basis of DOD’s current efforts to reform milspecs. DOD’s current milspec reform program is directed toward reducing government involvement in the detailed management of acquisitions so that appropriate opportunities will be taken to use commercial products and processes. Examples of the program’s direction can be seen by such recommendations as streamlining government oversight and inspection, encouraging contractors to offer alternatives to milspecs, expecting the use of performance-based milspecs, and requiring waivers to use milspecs when no alternative is available. This program is based on essentially the same recommendations contained in earlier reports addressing milspec reform. However, the PAT report goes further than previous efforts, as it includes more details for implementation, and additional steps were taken in June 1994, when DOD issued its implementation plan. The fact that most recommendations in the current program to reform milspecs are not new is not surprising because the PAT primarily relied on prior reports for its analysis. Also, as noted in an earlier study, the milspec area has been analyzed many times and “there is literally nothing new under the sun.” In our review of eight prior milspec and acquisition reform reports issued since 1977 (listed in app. II), we identified similar recommendations for 17 of the 24 recommendations in the PAT report, including 10 of the 13 principal ones. For example, at least six of the prior reports contained recommendations similar to the PAT recommendations for training, developing nongovernment standards, and automating the development of milspecs. Of the seven new recommendations, four were milspec recommendations related to oversight, contractor test and inspection, pollution prevention, and corporate information management for acquisition. The remaining three were not recognized by DOD as milspec issues and were not addressed by the implementation plan or the Secretary’s memorandum. Not only are most of the recommendations not new, but some of the recommended tasks are already stated in DOD or service policy. For example, one major PAT recommendation is to use performance specifications; however, according to DOD and service officials, the preference for performance specifications has existed for several years. In regard to another recommendation, DOD policy already directs adoption of all nongovernment standards currently used in DOD. Furthermore, the DOD Inspector General’s Office, in comments on the PAT draft report, indicated that the services’ or defense agencies’ policies have either encouraged or required actions similar to five of the recommended tasks to eliminate excessive contract requirements. Additionally, some DOD locations had undertaken actions that are comparable to tasks recommended in the PAT report. For example, the Army’s Armament, Munitions, and Chemical Command and its Test and Evaluation Command reported that in a 10-month period, they saved $42 million in test and inspection costs, with most savings resulting from the use of process controls. Process controls were recommended in the PAT report. DOD’s current milspec program addresses many aspects of developing and applying milspecs and identifies tasks that need to be accomplished. This can be attributed, in part, to the fact that the PAT report developed more detailed plans for implementation than most of the prior reports. In addition to identifying tasks for each recommendation, the report identified risks, barriers, possible benefits and disadvantages, resources, timeframes, responsible organizations, and progress indicators associated with the recommendations. For example, one principal recommendation is to establish Standards Improvement Executives that have the authority and resources to implement an improvement program in each service and defense agency. For this recommendation, the report identifies six tasks for implementation, such as appointing the Executives by a specified date and developing a separate budget line item for the funding they control; a risk to successful implementation, the concern that adequate resources might be unavailable; a barrier, the failure of past DOD leadership to demonstrate long-term commitment to the milspecs improvement program; benefits, such as helping foster cultural change, and disadvantages, such as creating another DOD power base; estimated costs of about $269 million for the entire milspecs improvement program over 6 fiscal years starting in 1994; and time frames for the tasks. In June 1994, a Report Implementation Group—consisting of representatives from OSD, the services, and the Defense Logistics Agency—met and developed DOD’s implementation plan. The plan addresses an approach for ensuring that the infrastructure and resources required for reform are in place. A key feature of the plan is that each major buying command and center is required to provide a draft of its own implementation plan to its service/agency by the end of October 1994, with final submittal by the end of November 1994. Additionally, to help ensure stable milspecs improvement funding and provide management oversight, the plan envisions that the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Economic Security) work with the DOD Comptroller to create a common program element for each service’s budget. Some PAT report recommendations were not viewed as directly related to milspec reform and were not addressed by the implementation group. Also, the group did not address some other implementing tasks. For example, the task to establish memorandums of understanding with industry was set aside because the PAT had provided no data on the benefits of this task and the implementation group questioned the value. In another case, a recommended task—canceling or inactivating standards identified by industry as problems—was temporarily suspended by the group pending the completion of an additional analysis. According to OSD officials, the implementation plan is simply the first step in a long-range, iterative process. We were told that the implementation plan reflects current thinking and that the plan is to be updated periodically to reflect progress, issues, and new directions. Officials said that in 6 months the group will revisit the plan and update it. The major focus of the current milspec reform program is on changing DOD’s acquisition culture. Specifically, the PAT’s recommendations and implementing tasks, the subsequent implementation plan, and the Secretary of Defense’s memorandum all address the need to change DOD’s acquisition culture. We previously reported that the inability to change the culture has thwarted reform. The PAT report goes beyond identifying the need for cultural changes and addresses several elements in a cultural change program, including (1) leadership, (2) training, (3) resources, and (4) incentives for desired behavior. In a February 1992 report, we stated that such elements, especially top management commitment and training, have been successfully used in the private sector to change organizational culture. However, we also noted that experts believe that a culture change is a long-term effort that takes at least 5 to 10 years to complete. DOD officials and prior studies have stated that past milspec reform initiatives were not fully successful because top management did not participate personally in the process and provide the required leadership. For example, in an overview of prior milspec initiatives, a 1993 report stated that personal involvement of DOD management has worked, and hands-off, directive-type management has not.