In This Story
July 20, 2023
In a government acquisition context, the term “second sourcing” describes the practice of using at least two different suppliers to provide goods and services that are comparable or identical in form and/or function. Second sourcing was more commonly employed as a procurement method in the 1980s to introduce greater competition into the defense industrial base and cut costs for component parts, but it has become a relatively rare practice in modern defense procurement.
Today, the Pentagon and defense firms are more likely to turn to second sourcing to promote supply chain resilience or bolster single-source suppliers where greater production capacity is needed. As the war in Ukraine and COVID-19 pandemic have exposed the national security importance of mitigating critical points of failure in defense supply chains, it is critical for the defense community to assess potential strategies for building supply chain resiliency.
This webinar examines second sourcing as a possible strategy within the defense acquisition toolkit to help accomplish this and other goals. Is it feasible, or even preferable, to revitalize second sourcing in a resource-constrained procurement environment geared toward single suppliers? If so, how do we do it best?
SPEAKERS
Olivia Letts
Moderator & Research Manager
Baroni Center for Government Contracting
Dr. Vic Ramdass
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness
Department of Defense
Moshe Schwartz
President
Etherton & Associates
Chris Stone
Vice President & Chief Supply Chain Officer
Lockheed Martin
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
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No. 16. Back to the Future? Second Sourcing in Defense Acquisitions, Baroni Center White Paper
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OpEd: To help supply chain challenge, DoD should revive Second Sourcing in defense acquisition, Olivia Letts and Jerry McGinn, Breaking Defense, July 18, 2023