Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment and a four-time Wash100 Award winner, issued a memo in mid-December formalizing the creation of a program that would provide participating defense contractors more access to special access programs or classified initiatives, the Air Force Magazine reported Monday.
The Department of Defense’s SAP Contractor Portfolio Program has four objectives and the first aims to provide contractors with broader access to SAPs they currently work on to allow them to integrate other capabilities and tools to achieve cost efficiency and improve technology development, Lord wrote in the Dec. 15 memo.
The program also intends to provide the defense industrial base with insight into SAP-supported architectures to enable participating companies to carry out informed independent research and development, better integrate products with existing capabilities and propose innovative platforms to address capability gaps.
Companies on contract for 15 or more SAPs with the Pentagon are eligible to take part in the program.