Early predictive indicators of contractor performance : a data-analytic approach / Philip S. Anton, William Shelton, James Ryseff [and 6 others].

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Antón, Philip S., author.
• Shelton, William L., author.
• Ryseff, James, author.

Contributor:

• Project Air Force (U.S.)
• Rosengarten Family Fund.
• Rand Corporation.
• United States. Department of the Air Force.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• United States. Department of the Air Force--Management.
• Government contractors--United States--Evaluation.
• Government contractors--United States--Management.

Physical Description:

xii, 96 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm

Place of Publication:

Santa Monica, Calif. : RAND Corporation, [2022]

Summary:

Getting early indication of potential contractor performance risks and contract execution issues is critical for proactive acquisition management. When contractors are in danger of not meeting contractual performance goals, Department of the Air Force (DAF) acquisition management may not be fully aware of the shortfall until, for example, a schedule deadline is missed, government testing indicates poor system's technical performance, or costs exceed expectations. Concerns continue to be raised about cost and schedule growth in acquisition and experts postulate about a lack of knowledge about the status of acquisition programs. In this report, the authors focus on metrics to identify emerging execution problems earlier than traditional acquisition oversight systems to enable more-proactive risk and performance management. They summarize their findings, which include a taxonomy of contractor relative risks, leading indicators of performance, relevant data sources, risk measures and equations, and a prototype that implements some of these findings using real data sources. This research should be of interest to acquisition professionals and leadership who are searching for ways to improve acquisition performance through early identification of potential relative contractor risks and execution problems to inform active program management and mitigation of risks. The prototype should be of interest to acquisition officials (from program managers to milestone decision authorities) to help them access more data in an easy-to-understand way so they can focus their limited time on areas that require increased management attention. This approach should be useful during any phase of the acquisition process.

Contents:

• Machine generated contents note: 1. The Challenge: Early Identification of Contractor Execution Problems in Acquisition
• Early Identification of Execution Problems
• Validity of the Measures
• Complementary Identification of Relative Contractor Risks
• Operationalization: Business Intelligence for Acquisition Professionals
• Data Streams and Risk Evaluation
• Operationalization of a Prototype
• Organization of This Report
• 2. Indicators of Performance
• Qualitative Indicators: Detecting Performance Issues Buried in Textual Reports
• Quantitative Indicators of Performance
• Cost Metrics
• Schedule Metrics
• Joint Cost and Schedule Metrics
• Contract Health Metric
• Opportunities for Future Capabilities
• Summary
• 3. Prototype Structure and Approach
• User Interface
• Intended Uses
• Combining Performance Measures
• Observations
• Architecture Overview
• 4. Insights, Conclusions, and Next Steps
• Insights on Data Utility and Availability.

Notes:

• "RAND Project AIR FORCE."
• Includes bibliographical references (pages 88-96)
• See also RAND/RR-A433-1, RAND/RR-A542-2

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

• 9781977409546
• 1977409547

OCLC:

1322277415

Online:

The Rosengarten Family Fund Home Page