Plant Representative Office. A Study of the Department of Defense Plant Cognizance Program and the Effects of Plant Cognizance Changes

摘要

The Plant Representative Office is a DOD organization vital to successful acquisition of major systems. Located at the contractor's facility, the Plant Representative Office provides contract administration services to the System Program Office (SPO). The Defense Logistics Agency has primary responsibility to provide contract administration services within the DOD. However, the military departments have requested to the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition Management) and have received assignment of specified Plant Representative Offices. The military departments believe a Plant Representative Office under their command can best serve their SPOs. The objective of this thesis was to either validate or refute the military departments' position. Three methods to evaluate the contract administration services provided by the Plant Representative Offices that had undergone a cognizance change were used. The methods were: (1) A comparative review of the components' guidance for the performance of contract administration services; (2) An analysis of the management indicators generated by the Plant Representative Offices before and after the cognizance change; and (3) Formal interviews of personnel working in the SPOs to obtain their perceptions of the affects of the plant cognizance change. The findings indicated that plant cognizance changes did not affect the quality of contract administration services provided by the Plant Representative Offices.