Buy Afghan, By Afghans, For Afghans: The ANSF Boot Acquisition Success Story
Abstract
The Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF), with financial assistance from NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A)/Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), has had responsibility for procuring its own food since 2005. However, the NTM-A/CSTC-A Security Assistance Office, Afghanistan's (SAO-A's) Local Acquisitions Office, has retained the procurement responsibility for many other warfighting and support commodities, including ANSF combat boots. In 2010, the Local Acquisitions Office embarked on a literally ground-breaking task: Improve the quality of the ANSF's boots while establishing a boot industrial base in Afghanistan to manufacture all of those boots to U.S.-grade specifications. The effort to improve ANSF boot quality began in early 2010 in response to reports from fielded units of poor quality boots. Prior to that, NTM-A/CSTC-A procured boots for the ANSF from various sources and methods: one Afghan manufacturer via an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract, several Afghan importers via blanket purchase agreements (BPAs), and U.S. suppliers via the foreign military sales (FMS) process. Unfortunately, there were no specifications or quality controls in place for these procurements. The simple requirement was for "boot brown" or "boot black" at the lowest price and delivered as quickly as possible. The NTM-A/CSTC-A Local Acquisitions Team decided to not only take steps to improve the quality of the boots, but also have all of the boots made in Afghanistan, which, at the time, appeared to be an unlikely proposition. Conventional wisdom was to simply order the boots from U.S. vendors, but the team, with backing from NTM-A/CSTC-A leadership, decided on a bold, two-pronged parallel approach to get boots made to the new specifications by an Afghan vendor and into the field as quickly as possible while expanding the boot industrial base to more Afghan vendors.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA564404
Entities
People
- Darren W. Rhyne
Organizations
- Defense Acquisition University