Department of the Army field contracting activities' contracting efforts with the Federal Prison Industries, Inc.

Abstract

The area of research is centered on one of the mandatory sources of supply for Federal Government agencies - the Federal Prison Industries, Inc. Established by the U.S. Congress in 1934 under authority of the Prison Made Supplies Act, Title 18, USC, 4121-4129, the Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (FPI) mission is to train and employ inmates. Initial research into the procurement practices and opinions of Department of the Army (DA) field contracting activities toward FPI revealed that many misconceptions exist and that the customer/supplier relationship between DA and FPI could be improved. The objective of this thesis was to examine the procurement practices of the DA field contracting activities by the use of a survey and to use the survey's results to identify analogous problems. This study identifies the problems that exist between DA and FPI, summarizes why they exist, and offers some recommendations for improving the customer/supplier relationship