$10000 Toilet Seats and Data Rights: The Air Force's New Dilemma
Summary
So if the Air Force continues to modernize its legacy fleets in addition to buying new, more advanced equipment and planes, it will need to have more access to technical data and software often owned or operated by industry partners, experts say."There is no real process to define what technical data requirements are in major acquisition programs," said Heather Penny, senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies."Firms may choose not to participate in future acquisitions, or defense primes may need to acquire small businesses in order to satisfy the governments demands for the data (thereby decreasing competition)," the study said.The Mitchell paper suggests that because the Pentagon, and particularly the Air Force, has had an inconsistent approach to how it sustains certain programs, it needs to be more transparent in its contracts going forward.The experts say standing up a small cadre of Air Force data rights focused acquisition officers to act as liaisons between defense companies and the service may help programs and contracting in the long-term.