Cost Plus contracting (including hybrids thereof) should probably be banned (in anything other than a war economy).
If companies can’t compete and that’s undesirable, subsidize them - but be up front about it.
One option would be to have them bid as normal, but then have central government pay X% of the money so that it doesn’t come out of the budget of the specific department (e.g. NASA), if the struggling company wins the contract. And so the department would be incentivized (and required) to treat the struggling company’s bid as if it was actually X% lower.
Keep increasing X until you’re satisfied with the level of dissimilar redundancy.
but then have central government pay X% of the money so that it doesn’t come out of the budget of the specific department (e.g. NASA)
In the implication here that it is Congress who want a diversity of suppliers, whereas NASA doesn’t care as much? That’s an interesting solution.
How would the X% be determined? Would it be the same for each company (except for the leader), or somehow proportional to how much the company is “struggling”?
In the implication here that it is Congress who want a diversity of suppliers, whereas NASA doesn’t care as much?
Yes, I think that’s the implication. I realized it’s not correct but decided to leave it like that. I’m a big picture kinda guy; someone else can sort out the details!
I guess it might be more like a combined NASA / Space Force high level strategic fund providing the subsidy. So that individual ‘low level’ programmes within NASA / Space Force then don’t have to worry too much about the long term strategic goals like dissimilar redundancy, and can mostly just focus on their own needs.
Cost Plus contracting (including hybrids thereof) should probably be banned (in anything other than a war economy).
If companies can’t compete and that’s undesirable, subsidize them - but be up front about it.
One option would be to have them bid as normal, but then have central government pay X% of the money so that it doesn’t come out of the budget of the specific department (e.g. NASA), if the struggling company wins the contract. And so the department would be incentivized (and required) to treat the struggling company’s bid as if it was actually X% lower.
Keep increasing X until you’re satisfied with the level of dissimilar redundancy.
In the implication here that it is Congress who want a diversity of suppliers, whereas NASA doesn’t care as much? That’s an interesting solution.
How would the X% be determined? Would it be the same for each company (except for the leader), or somehow proportional to how much the company is “struggling”?
Yes, I think that’s the implication. I realized it’s not correct but decided to leave it like that. I’m a big picture kinda guy; someone else can sort out the details!
I guess it might be more like a combined NASA / Space Force high level strategic fund providing the subsidy. So that individual ‘low level’ programmes within NASA / Space Force then don’t have to worry too much about the long term strategic goals like dissimilar redundancy, and can mostly just focus on their own needs.