The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) is the agency of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 federal government responsible for performing contract

Contract

A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...

 administration services for the Department of Defense

United States Department of Defense

The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

 and other authorized federal agencies. Its headquarters is at Fort Lee, Va. DCMA often handles Foreign Military Sales

Foreign Military Sales

The U.S. Department of Defense's Foreign Military Sales program facilitates sales of U.S. arms, defense equipment, defense services, and military training to foreign governments...

 contracts.

History

Performance of Contract Administration Services (CAS) within DoD has been studied and modified for many years. In the early 1960s, a study was commissioned by the Secretary of Defense to examine the entire DoD contracting process. Known as “Project 60,” the findings pointed to numerous benefits to consolidating contract administration functions. At that time, each agency and military service was performing their own contract administration which resulted in a great amount of duplicate effort. Many of the contract administration responsibilities were eventually moved to the Defense Logistics Agency

Defense Logistics Agency

The Defense Logistics Agency is an agency in the United States Department of Defense, with more than 26,000 civilian and military personnel throughout the world...

 (DLA). However, the military services continued to retain oversight of the major acquisition programs.

Defense Contract Management Command (DCMC)

The CAS process was again reviewed in 1989. Citing continued problems with the manner in which the services were performing CAS, Defense Management Review Decision (DMRD) 916 recommended the establishment of a joint command to perform CAS for DoD, to ensure that consistent policies and standards were applied to the acquisition process. DCMC was established as a command within the Defense Logistics Agency

Defense Logistics Agency

The Defense Logistics Agency is an agency in the United States Department of Defense, with more than 26,000 civilian and military personnel throughout the world...

 in February 1990 to satisfy the findings of DMRD 916.

DCMA

On March 27 2000, DCMC was renamed as the Defense Contract Management Agency and established independently from DLA. DoD Directive 5105.64 formally established the purpose and mission of DCMA and, save for specific exceptions detailed in DFARS, all DoD activities are required to delegate contract administration functions to DCMA.

The DCMA headquarters moved from northern Virginia to Fort Lee, Va., as part of the federal 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process. The new headquarters was dedicated as Herbert Homer Hall on Sept. 15, 2011. Homer was a DCMA employee killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The current director is Mr. Charlie E. Williams, Jr.

External links

• Defense Contract Management Agency