RCR Grunt said:
And therein lies the rub. The laws concerning government procurements have to change, at least with regards to DND, before the "big" CF sees any sort of large scale COTS procurements. I don't see this happening anytime soon, too many fingers in the pie of government contracts.
What needs to happen for real change in the way we are equipped is a separation of the PWGSC and the DND procurement process. The best equipment for the best deal is what is required, not the lowest bidder from Canada.
I'd say for individual equipment level/soldier system type stuff, even more than a separation of PWGSC and DND would have to happen; Industry Canada would have to approve an exclusion clause on Canadian goods & services requirements, and DND would need to fundamentally change how it views purchasing COTS, as they currently prefer to retain ownership of most of the technical data/specifications for clothing & equipment.
An example which could be brought up by the DND side of the house could go like this:
The CFs/DND decide they want to start buying a commercially available combat boot from a company like Lowa.
These Lowa Übermäßiger Fuß Boots are loaded with awesome features such as a proprietary arch support system (protected by numerous patents), are lightweight, yet extremely supportive around the ankle, but are still flexible for kneeling, have a proprietary sole compound (protected by numerous patents) which is very grippy on wet surfaces and ice, yet hard wearing and long-lasting, etc. These things are so sweet that about the only thing they don't do is self-levitate.
The Army then trials the Lowa Übermäßiger Fuß boots, and they're found to be acceptable by the user community, scoring record-setting marks by those trialing it (forget 80% solution, this thing is a solid 99.9%) and set up a standing offer with Lowa so that they can commence large-scale purchasing in order to issue the entire Army these Lowa Übermäßiger Fuß boots.
Time progresses, and most of the soldiers in the Army are happy with the Lowa boots that they're issued, "Yea!!! These Übermäßiger Fuß kick ***!!! :camo: CTS finally got something right...we told them for years to forget about all that technical data those eggheads at DSSPM come up with for all this crappy issued kit, and just to go out and buy something commercially".
Then, a catastrophic fire occurs at the Lowa factory, shutting down production for months and months until the company can rebuild their factory. Due to undisclosed financial mismangement and unsound leadership, the fire is the nail in the coffin for Lowa, and the company declares bancruptcy and ceases production indefinitely.
The Army then quickly starts to run out of Lowa Übermäßiger Fuß boots to issue, and despite calls to industry, due to all the proprietary features, this Lowa Übermäßiger Fuß boot cannot be replicated by industry, as the Army doesn't have own the technical data that is needed to build this boot.
Now the Army is out of boots, doesn't know what boot to replace the now extinct Lowa Übermäßiger Fuß, and must go through a selection and trial process of several commercially available boots, and set up a standing offer with the winner of the trial and selection process, who in turn must tool up production and deliveries, so you could easily be looking at a year and a half before the Army starts getting boots again.
The same analogy could be applied to almost any piece of individual kit that's procured commercially from the manufacturer who has claims on proprietary design features, i.e. Arc'Teryx Alpha pack, Blue Force Gear Vickers Sling, Eagle CIRAS body armour, SO Tech Hellcat chest rig, etc.
I think it's wise for DND to have DSSPM control the technical data for certain things, however, in an ideal world, a better selection and trial process would put superior issued kit in the hands of the troops.
