The Rapid Acquisition Process (RAP) provides rapid transition funding for the development and fielding of highly successful competitive experiments and demonstrations. It addresses the approach, assessment, validation, sourcing, resourcing, and fielding of operationally driven urgent, execution-year combatant commander needs. It supports the specific DoD goal of significantly shortening the acquisition response time and acquisition cycle times. 

See: Adaptive Acquisition Framework

Rapid Acquisition Methods Include:

• Services:
  • DoD Instruction 5000.74 “Defense Acquisition of Service”
• Weapons System Procurement:
  • DoD Instruction 5000.02 “Operations of the Defense Acquisition System”
• Middle Tier Prototyping:
  • Section 804 “Middle Tier of acquisition paths to acquire critical national security capabilities”
  • Section 806 “Developing, Prototyping, Developing of Weapons System Components”
• Early Prototyping:
  • DoD Instruction “DoD Research and Development Laboratories”

Rapid Acquisitions is focused on:

• Acquisition Category (ACAT) II or below
• Streamlined process
• Joint Urgent Operational Needs (JUON)
• Specific, contingency operation requirement
• Quick assessment of alternatives
• Limited development if feasible
• High visibility on results
• Limited investment (generally, but not always)
• May transition to Normal Acquisition Program
• 75% solution acceptable
• Goal of awarding contracts in 15 days
• Only buying equipment that, in the aggregate, is not more than $100M, each fiscal year.

Quadrennial Defense Review (2010) –“… the Department needs a means to quickly prioritize and quantify requirements and to ensure that the resources are available to enable rapid fielding of capabilities inside of the Department’s Planning Programming, Budgeting and Execution System (PPBES) cycle”

The RAP process is meant to shorten the project decision/initiation time by 2-5 years for selected projects due to the integrated OSD and Component Headquarters review and immediate availability of transition funding. The RAP process is specifically designed to deal with initiatives throughout the fiscal year as they arise resulting in a sequential distribution of RAP funding over the course of that entire execution year.

The Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell provides a single point of contact in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) for tracking the timeliness of immediate warfighter need actions for the senior leadership and facilitating coordination with other government agencies.

AcqLinks and References:

• DoD Directive 5000.71 “Rapid Fulfillment of Combatant Commander Urgent Operational Needs” – 24 Aug 12
• Hidden Value – The Underappreciated Role of Product Support in Rapid Acquisition by Jim Farmer
• Rapid Fielding by Earl Wyatt

Updated: 7/24/2021

Rank: G1