Systems engineering and defence procurement

This article examines the world scene as it is affecting international procurement, and briefly reviews the UK´s response to the changing world-smart procurement. One of the objectives of smart procurement is to learn from successful commercial practices, in such areas as lean production, integrated product teams, the use of commercial off-the-shelf products to save both procurement time and money, and many more. It was envisaged that there would be a partnership between government and the defence industry to produce defence products faster, better and cheaper. A quite different defence procurement paradigm is outlined, both to show that there is one, and to examine its pros and cons in meeting the original intentions of smart procurement. It concludes that the UK could meet those intentions, but that the UK would have to relinquish its control-centric procurement attitudes and re-organise the way in-service equipment is supported.