Road Map For Milspec Reform

Center of Military History Publication 51-3-1. By J. Ronald Fox, et al. Discusses reform initiatives from 1960 to the present and concludes with prescriptions for future changes to the acquisition culture of the services, DoD, and industry.

Mandated standards used for vehicle airbags, International Organization for Standards (ISO) standards adopted for photographic film, de facto standards for computer softwareâ€"however they arise, standards play a fundamental role in the global marketplace. Standards, Conformity Assessment, and Trade provides a comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of the link between standards, product testing and certification, and U.S. economic performance. The book includes recommendations for streamlining standards development, increasing the efficiency of product testing and certification, and promoting the success of U.S. exports in world markets. The volume offers a critical examination of organizations involved in standards and identifies the urgent improvements needed in the U.S. system for conformity assessment, in which adherence to standards is assessed and certified. Among other key issues, the book explores the role of government regulation, laboratory accreditation, and the overlapping of multiple quality standards in product development and manufacturing. In one of the first treatments of this subject, Standards, Conformity Assessment, and Trade offers a unique and highly valuable analysis of the impact of standards and conformity assessment on global trade.

The essays in this volume examine institutional change in five of the most important areas of economic life in central and eastern Europe after 1989: international and regional economic reintegration; the restructuring of the industrial base; how economic interests are to be represented; fiscal and budgetary reform; and reform of the social welfare system. The editors use these research findings to buttress a somewhat heterodox theory of institutional dynamics, one pointing to "discursive structures" and "governance structures" as key dimensions that, in combination, affect institutional change in this part of the world so that an economic "revolution" becomes an evolutionary processes of gradual transition.

Charting new directions for Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), this report emphasizes the need for leadership, uniformity, transparency and discipline in the regulatory process. It offers an historical perspective of the regulatory-reform process and analyzes the initiative proposed by the National Performance Review, to move toward guiding principles rather than prescriptive rules. Although the report's authors agree with the National Performance Review that the FAR system is profoundly flawed, they take issue with the proposed remedy of guiding principles, and instead propose a comprehensive agenda for FAR reform.