The Defense Acquisition Workforce

An Analysis of Personnel Trends Relevant to Policy, 1993–2006

Susan M. Gates, Edward G. Keating, Adria D. Jewell, Lindsay Daugherty, Bryan Tysinger, Albert A. Robbert, Ralph Masi

ResearchPublished Jul 9, 2008

The defense acquisition workforce includes more than 130,000 military and civilian personnel responsible for providing a wide range of acquisition, technology, and logistics support to the nation's warfighters. This report summarizes workforce analyses that RAND has undertaken in support of the Defense Acquisition University, which is responsible for strategic human capital management of that workforce. It covers the civilian acquisition workforce, the careers of acquisition workforce senior executive service members, and the military acquisition workforce and its implications for the larger workforce. It also describes an inventory projection model that uses data on the civilian acquisition workforce as a key input. The authors conclude that better definition and tracking of the acquisition workforce would improve workforce planning and that workforce analysis is only one step in an overall strategic human capital planning effort.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Web Only
  • Year: 2008
  • Pages: 72
  • Document Number: TR-572-OSD

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Gates, Susan M., Edward G. Keating, Adria D. Jewell, Lindsay Daugherty, Bryan Tysinger, Albert A. Robbert, and Ralph Masi, The Defense Acquisition Workforce: An Analysis of Personnel Trends Relevant to Policy, 1993–2006. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2008. https://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR572.html.
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The research described in this report was prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). The research was conducted in the RAND RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the OSD, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.

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