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GR66 said:Then maybe the CF should just hand the technical requirements off to Public Services and Procurement Canada and let THEM provide the staffing to deal with the externally imposed contract requirements.
It may not get us our equipment any faster, but I would take some perverse satisfaction in seeing our MND, when asked by the opposition why the purchase of vital equipment "X" is taking so long, he/she could stand up in the House and say "The Canadian Forces provided PSPC our technical requirements for this item ten years ago and provided them our technical feedback on the field testing of the prototypes provided by the bidders they generated in 2013, so I will defer to my Honourable colleague, the Minister responsible to comment on the delivery of this item."
Understanding the technical requirements isn't trivial. There are integration requirements- are the hangers the right size? Are the power sources correct? How are we managing training? How are we managing sparing - part of a multinational fleet (as with C17 / C130J) or on a stand-alone basis? Are we outsourcing the periodic overhauls to industry (Hello, Air Canada) or doing it in-house? How many locations are we operating the a/c from?
And that's just a 30 second set of questions. Far, far more that goes into planning such activities, and requires dedicated staff to work alongside PSPC.
DND's side of acquisition fails just as often as PSPC - and sometimes those fails are because PSPC gives DND what DND asked for, not what DND needed.