STUDENT 1: Vicki

Commercial off the shelf (COTS) items or services are those that are available to the general public by vendors who retain the intellectual property rights. Using COTS gives the agency the ability to receive the benefits of technological advances, quicker procurement timelines and cost savings. There can be a huge cost and time savings by using modified COTS over research and development programs. Market competition for COTS drives costs down, saves on procurement times as well as implementation and fielding of systems.

One issue to keep in mind when considering COTS as an option is the need for Test & Evaluation (T&E) for the DOD environment. Feasibility testing, integration and maintenance as well as testing of modifications. There is also the issue of inclusion of testing and maintenance into the program at the earliest stages, considering that T&E to a military specification was not likely to have been completed on COTS.

Within my agency we first look to utilize COTS, then we look to use modified COTS and Research and Development (R&D) comes as a last resort. One area that COTS should be used as much as possible is in information technology. Many COTS software programs are easily modified to meet government specs if the original configuration is not already up to par. Additionally, computer hardware is another area where it is practical to use COTS. Minor modifications to a commercially available item does not negate the commerciality. The interoperability of COTS equipment and software also saves time and money in the long run.

http://acqnotes.com/acqnote/careerfields/commercia…

STUDENT 2: Kevin

Commercial off the shelf (COTS) could be used within any DoD program as the commercial market tends to develop a lot of the technologies that go into the modern weapons systems. The government officials realized they could benefit off of using commercially sold products rather then try and develop their own, as long as they meet all the military requirements, just like a new 9mm round was required to be made for the military to use in their new Sig P320 that the Army was the first to sign a contract with moving away from the M9 Beretta. By considering using off the shelf products, there is a lot of commercial competition to be looked at, and depending on the quality of the product, could be bought for much less. Regardless when considering a commercial off the shelf product for a government acquisition program, there are many challenges that will still need to be overcome. One of the biggest challenges I think that would need to be considered is the difference in the culture of the DoD acquisition programs compared to the commercial side of things, knowing that the commercial sides development team would need to rethink the way they did things if they planned on providing any government program with a product that they produced. However, at the same time this would allow for new technology to be implemented faster and be more reliable and have a greater availability. It does ultimately fall on the DoD to make themselves more commercial friendly as far as the budget and the products and solutions that the commercial market comes up with.

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