Total Package Procurement
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Total Package Procurement (TPP or alternatively TPPC) was a major systems acquisition policy introduced in the United States Department of Defense in the mid-1960s by Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara.[1] It was conceived by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Installations and Logistics, Robert H. Charles.[2]
TPP involves combining as a single package for the procurement a number of related requirements including the design, development, production and support of major systems.[3] This concept was a "pendulum reaction" to the prior cost reimbursement policies in major weapon systems.[4]
Total Package Procurement was not successful and was abandoned shortly after MacNamara left office.[5][6]
TPP is a method of procuring at the outset of the acquisition phase under a single contract containing price, performance and schedule commitments, the maximum practical amount of design, development, production and support needed to introduce and sustain a system or component in the inventory.[3]
The purpose of TPP was to procure under the influence of competition as much of the total design, development, production and support requirements for a system or component as may be practicable thereby:
- Providing firmer 5-year force structure program package planning information concerning performance cost and schedules.[3]
- Discouraging contractors from buying in on the design and development effort with the intention of recovering on the subsequent production program.[3]
- Permitting program decision and source selection based on binding performance price and schedule commitments by contractors for the total program or major part of it.[3]
- Providing a firmer basis for projecting total acquisition and operational costs for use in source selection and in the determination of appropriate contractual incentives.[3]
- Motivating contractors to design initially for economical production and support of operational hardware which may not receive sufficient emphasis in the absence of productions commitments.[3]
- Requiring contractors to assume more responsibility for program success thereby permitting the Government to monitor programs more in terms of surveillance and less in terms of detailed management.[3]