The US DoD is streamlining the way it administers the foreign military sales (FMS) program, including testing a concept to get pre-approvals for requests for high-demand technologies such as unmanned aerial systems, the director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said June 10.
Foreign military sales have averaged $30 billion for each of the last three years, up almost three-fold from the 2005-2008 time-frame.
Many customers who once were willing to forego fast delivery to keep the bottom line as low as possible now want their goods and services as fast as possible, often to support current operations.
DSCA is giving its FMS processes a top-to-bottom review to make it improve processes and make it more flexible and responsive to customer needs.
Among 11 core initiatives under way, one involves working with interagency partners and customers at the front end of the process to shape foreign military sales purchase requests before they’re made.
Something as simple as getting customers to request technologies that already have been developed, rather than still in the pipeline, can go a long way toward speeding up delivery.
Another DSCA initiative seeks to apply a more systematic approach to processing requests for the most sought-after technologies, including unmanned vehicles and unmanned aerial systems.
Instead of processing countries’ requests in succession, the idea is to make broader foreign military sales decisions early on, before the purchase requests ever come in.