The Defense Department is taking steps to ensure the U.S. industrial base will continue to provide mission-critical capabilities should sequestration continue into fiscal 2014, DoD Buzz reported Thursday.Kris Osborn writes Elana Broitman, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for manufacturing and industrial base policy, said in a recent interview with Military.com that the DoD evaluates vendors’ capacity to produce defense technologies.
Broitman noted the agency uses a tool, dubbed S2T2, that works to compile vendor-specific information and analyze relationships between suppliers.
“With S2T2, we really delve deep into each tier of the supply chain in order to be accurate whether a particular company is critical, meaning if it goes away no other company could fill its spot so the entire supply chain is at risk,†Broitman said.
She added the effort also helps the department mitigate single points of failure for products designed for military use.
Broitman also said the department can invest in mitigation strategies through the Defense Production Act and ManTech funding programs.
According the report, the Pentagon monitors technological progress and market changes to make its procurements worthwhile.
“We don’t want to spend money if a particular product will be moving to the next generation by the time there is an exit strategy,†Broitman added.
