Expanding Private Production of Defense Services

Among other topics, the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces considered whether the Department of Defense (DoD) should contract out–outsource–support services that DoD now produces in-house and, if so, (1) which services DoD should outsource and (2) what DoD can do to make outsourcing more cost-effective. This report reviews a set of issues relevant to these questions. The report first reviews barriers and objections to outsourcing that have been raised by earlier studies and government commissions that have addressed outsourcing. It then reviews insights from commercial-sector experience with outsourcing that DoD could use to guide its own actions on outsourcing. Finally, it offers suggestions about how to structure an implementation plan for large-scale outsourcing of support services. In particular, it identifies the attributes of support activities that DoD should consider outsourcing first and how DoD could facilitate an outsourcing program.