How can the military construction process be reformed to accelerate the modernization of the organic industrial base (OIB)? The growing disparity in agility between the OIB and the defense industrial base presents a strategic challenge. What specific policy, funding, or procedural reforms would enable the OIB to match the execution speed of its private-sector counterparts and better meet mission-critical needs?
- Burton, Lt. Col. Bennet A., "Design-Bid-Build (DBB) Versus Design-Build (DB): Which Is Better?" AWC SSP, 2021.
- Addresses procedural reforms to the military construction process by arguing that the Department of Defense should transition from the traditional Design-Bid-Build (DBB) method to the Design-Build (DB) method. The author highlights that DB mitigates cost and schedule growth by utilizing performance-based requirements and single-award contracts, which helps bypass the bureaucratic delays and cost overruns that plague DBB processes.
- Franks, Stacia, "An Argument for Designating Supply Chain Management Operations as a Core Logistics Capability," AWC SSP, 2022.
- Touches on the "organic" aspect by examining the vulnerabilities of the Air Force's organic supply chain. To ensure its survival as the military modernizes and divests from legacy platforms, the paper recommends legally designating supply chain management as a core logistics capability under 10 USC § 2464, which would ensure a reliable, government-owned source of technical competence.
- Gracia, Maj. Jimmy S., "From WWII Relics to Modern Strongholds: Revamping Indo-Pacific Defenses," AFGC thesis, 2025.
- This paper discusses MILCON reforms necessary to accelerate infrastructure development and base resilience in the Indo-Pacific, rather than the organic industrial base. To overcome rigid congressional appropriations and bureaucratic delays, the paper recommends implementing a flexible MILCON framework that incorporates a 10% contingency buffer to handle unpredictable material cost overruns and inflation. Procedurally, it recommends streamlining U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) approvals to reduce bureaucratic delays and establishing a unified joint contracting approach across all military services to fix misaligned priorities.
- Smith, Maj. Ian A., "Ace with Spades: Air Force Civil Engineers and the Challenges of Enabling Agile Combat Employment," AFGC thesis, 2024.
- Discusses policy and funding reforms for military construction, noting that the traditional MILCON process is too slow and bureaucratic to support modern maneuvers like Agile Combat Employment (ACE). To accelerate base development, the paper highlights recent Congressional reforms—such as the FY24 NDAA—which expanded the authority to use Operations and Maintenance (O&M) funds for certain projects and raised the minor MILCON threshold to $15 million in the Indo-Pacific Command.
- Twyford, Cameron S., "Bridging the Gap: Innovative Approaches to Air Force Real Property Sustainment Project Execution," AFGC thesis, 2025.
- This research addresses the Air Force's widening capacity-demand gap for executing MILCON and sustainment projects, though it focuses on general real property and infrastructure rather than the organic industrial base specifically. The paper suggests that because procedural policy guidance alone has failed to prevent cost and schedule overruns, the military must modernize its project execution by adopting artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) tools. By implementing predictive analytics frameworks similar to those used in the commercial construction industry, the Air Force can forecast schedule delays, identify root causes from historical data, and optimize resource allocation in real-time.