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DoD Standards Reform - Background
From DoD Joint Technical Architecture, Version 2.0, 26 May 1998,
Appendix C.1
The DoD Standards Reform was begun in June 1994 when the Secretary of
Defense issued his memorandum entitled
"Specifications and Standards - A New Way of Doing Business".
The Secretary of Defense directed that
performance-based specifications and standards or nationally-recognized
private sector standards be used in future acquisitions. The intent of
this initiative is to
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eliminate non-value added requirements, and thus
to reduce the cost of weapon systems and materiel;
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remove impediments
to getting commercial state-of-the-art technology into our weapon systems;
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and integrate the commercial and military industrial bases to the greatest
extent possible.
The
Defense Standards Improvement Council (DSIC)
directs implementation of the Reform. The DSIC has interpreted and
extended the Reform policy through a series of
numbered OSD policy memos.
These policy memos and other DSIC decisions, newsletters and other
standardization related information are posed on the Defense Standardization
Program (DSP) World Wide Web home page at:
http://www.acq.osd.mil/