The Defense Acquisition Workforce Growth Initiative: Toward an Assessment of its Impact on Department of the Navy Acquisition Activity

Abstract

The U.S. Department of the Navy (DoN) 2010 acquisition workforce (AWF) strategic plan noted that, since the 1990s, the value of DoN contracting had increased by more than 50% while the acquisition workforce had declined by almost 50%. In response, as a component of the Department of Defense (DoD), the DoN set an objective to in-source at least 3,500 civilian positions over the Future Years Defense Program period and hire an additional 1,590 civilian positions using money from the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund. These actions would lead to an increase of 8% in the civilian acquisition workforce over the subsequent six years. Given this increase in personnel, the questions have been asked: What has been the impact of this change in acquisition staffing within the DoN, and how is acquisition different now than with the previous smaller workforce? Addressing these issues is not straightforward, both due to the complex structure of the acquisition workforce and of the acquisition activities themselves. Nevertheless, it should be possible to discern some basic indicators that, while not definitive, do provide some indication of the impact of the increase in the workforce.