The U.S. Government has entrusted a significant fiduciary responsibility to its supply chain base by furnishing hundreds of billions of dollars of property to contractors. Contractual requirements for management of Government property are outlined in FAR Parts 45 and 52.245-1, as well as additional Agency-specific regulations such as the DFARS. The Government and its contractors incur millions of dollars of cost each year in property administration activities to achieve compliance with these regulations.
Despite efforts in the last decade to streamline the contractual requirements for Government-furnished property, FAR 52.245-1 and similar regulations- as well as oversight activities to ensure compliance- have continued to proliferate, increasing costs for both Government and contractors. Asset Management professionals have invested considerable resources in developing voluntary consensus standards (VCS) over the last 15 years as a way to reduce regulatory burden and cost. The Government can achieve a significant cost savings by more fully embracing the use of these VCS in lieu of prescriptive contractual and regulatory requirements.
The foundation for reducing the regulatory burden and achieving these cost savings exists today in the form of a proven body of VCS for property and asset management. The ASTM E53 Committee on Asset Management has released 28 international standards since 2001, and the ISO 55000 Asset Management standard was released in 2014. U.S. Government and contractor Asset Management professionals participated in the development of these standards, and many contractors have begun to implement them in their processes and procedures where possible.
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