Defense Acquisition Research Journal Issue 95

January 2021

In contrast, elements such as data and training were rarely flagged with statistically significant differences. Aggregated factors are therefore likely to be sufficient in these areas. Several limitations to this study are noted. First, the analysis applies only to development projects. Projects in the production stage are likely to have different factors. Future research is recommended in this area. Second, the CCDR database that was utilized contained only contract values greater than $50 million. Smaller projects were not considered. Third, 27 older programs could not be analyzed due to inaccessible files or illegible data. Timeframe testing was conducted to analyze the effect with results showing little potential for bias. Lastly, an anonymous reviewer suggested exploring the effects of dollar-weighted factors, rather than equal weighting of indi vidual contracts. This is an area to explore in future research. The cost factor development and analysis presented here is one step toward improving public procurement in the DoD. Future research should focus not only on factor development in other phases of the life cycle, but also on those elements of cost growth that are not attributable to estimator toolkit defi ciencies. Ultimately, it will be the combination of improvements in all these areas that is necessary to achieving efficiency gains in public procurement. Acknowledgement This material is based on work supported by the Acquisition Research Program at the Naval Postgraduate School.

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Defense ARJ, January 2021, Vol. 28 No. 1 : 40-70