Preservation of Tooling for Major Defense Acquisition Programs (DFARS Case 2008-D042)

Summary:

DCN 20110302 includes a final rule amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to implement section 815 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009. Section 815 addresses the preservation of tooling for major defense acquisition programs.

Supplementary Information:

I.  Background

Section 815 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 (Pub. L. 110-417) impacts the acquisition planning process. Section 815, entitled "Preservation of Tooling for Major Defense Acquisition Programs," mandates the publication of guidance requiring the "preservation and storage of unique tooling associated with the production of hardware for a major defense acquisition program through the end of the service life of the end item associated with such a program." The statute states that the guidance must--

•  Require that the milestone decision authority (MDA) approve a plan for the preservation and storage of "such tooling prior to Milestone C approval;"

•  Require the MDA to periodically review the plan to ensure that it remains adequate and in the best interest of DoD; and

•  Provide a mechanism for the Secretary of Defense to waive the requirement under certain circumstances.

DoD published a proposed rule in the Federal Register (75 FR 25159) on May 7, 2010, to address the new statutory requirements. The rule proposed to add a new paragraph (S-73) to DFARS 207.106, Additional requirements for major systems. The topic of subpart 207.1 is Acquisition Plans.

II.  Discussion and Analysis

The public comment period closed July 6, 2010. Four respondents submitted comments on six issues. A discussion of the comments is provided here.

Dates:

The Effective Date for this final rule is 2 March 2011.

Click here to read the entire Federal Register notice for this rule.