CONTRACTING & ACQUISITIONS

FORCE DESIGN 2028

BUILDING THE COAST GUARD TO PROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THE HOMELAND

The Service will streamline its contracting and acquisitions (C&A) to respond to emerging threats. It will work well with industry, leverage creative commercial solutions, and prioritize speed and flexibility to deliver critical capabilities. The historic opportunity for significant investment from the Administration and Congress to renew the Coast Guard drive the imperative for the Service to be ready to successfully execute those investments. 

Consistent with the President’s Executive Order on “Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Defense Industrial Base,” the Coast Guard will reform its acquisition processes to successfully deliver ready, critical capabilities while managing risk, including the icebreakers needed to provide assured U.S. access and presence to the polar regions and unmanned systems to enable Coast Guard operations wherever it operates. 

The Coast Guard will establish a disciplined, integrated requirements process to eliminate the process that results in bloated and boutique requirements that cannot be delivered on time or at budgeted cost. The Secretary of the Coast Guard will be responsible for senior acquisition decisions and direction to leverage collaboration with industry and the industrial base and ensure performance.

Key Initiatives Include: 

  • Streamline contracting approvals

    Establishing the role of Senior Procurement Executive within the Coast Guard Secretariat will bring specialized experience unique to Coast Guard contracting actions, including military ships and aircraft, to move with speed to deliver key capabilities. 

  • Outsource procurement activity to increase efficiency

    By leveraging other proven government agencies, the Coast Guard can reduce the need for its specialized contracting personnel to unnecessarily devote time to certain projects. Assisted acquisitions and outsourcing surge work to DoD or other agencies with requisite capacity will streamline execution. 

  • Establish single points of accountability

    The Coast Guard will eliminate consensus-based decision making and empower Program Executive Officers and individual program managers to make decisions on their programs. It will incentivize acquiring a capability within scheduled cost and performance and hold personnel appropriately accountable for failing to deliver on-time and on-budget.