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Cost Estimating NewsBrief: January 9, 2026
Army Issues New Directive on Weapon System Supply Chain Risk Management
(Executive Gov) The U.S. Army has issued Army Directive 2025-26 to update its policy on supply chain risk management, or SCRM, for weapon systems to strengthen the service’s ability to identify and manage supply chain threats. The directive, posted online by the Army Publishing Directorate Tuesday, rescinds Army Directive 2023-16 and reissues SCRM policy to align with President Donald Trump’s January 2025 Executive Order 14154, also known as Unleashing American Energy. The document comes months after War Secretary Pete Hegseth, a 2025 Wash100 winner, unveiled changes to the Pentagon’s acquisition of weapons systems to strengthen deterrence and ensure warfighting advantage. Read More
Overhauling acquisition, production and procurement processes to rebuild the industrial base
(Breaking Defense) The US defense industrial base has faced a number of challenges in recent years. The COVID pandemic revealed weaknesses in the supply chain. Supporting Ukraine depleted materiel stockpiles that are being refilled, but not quickly enough due to capacity limitations. Rebuilding the industrial base and reshaping acquisitions is a top priority for the Pentagon, and being able to meet the demands of the modern battlefield requires an overhaul of acquisition, production and procurement processes. Read More
Civilian Telework And Remote Work: DOD Should Evaluate Programs in Relation to Department Goals
(U.S. Government Accountability Office) The use of telework and remote work at the Department of Defense decreased since the COVID-19 pandemic ended, with civilians conducting most work in person by 2024. In January 2025, DOD ended telework and remote work except for approved exemptions and on a limited basis. However, DOD data on the number of employees eligible to telework or work remotely are incomplete. Additionally, DOD hasn’t formally evaluated these programs with respect to agency goals such as recruitment and retention. Read More
The 2026 Outlook for Navy Shipbuilding
(Congressional Budget Office) For many years, the Congress has appropriated more funds for naval shipbuilding than Administrations have requested. That trend will probably continue for fiscal year 2026. This presentation provides details about Congressional support for shipbuilding and explores some of the challenges that the Navy’s 2025 shipbuilding plan poses for the nation’s shipbuilding industrial base. Read More
AI may not be the federal buzzword for 2026
(Federal News Network) Let’s start with the good news: artificial intelligence may NOT be the buzzword for 2026. What will be the most talked about federal IT and/or acquisition topic for this year remains up for debate. While AI will definitely be part of the conversation, at least some experts believe other topics will emerge over the next 12 months. These range from the Defense Department’s push for “speed to capability” to resilient innovation to workforce transformation. Read More
Five Trends in AI and Data Science for 2026
(MIT Sloan Management Review) Organizations tend to change much more slowly than AI technology does these days. This means that forecasting enterprise adoption of AI is a bit easier than predicting technology change in this, our third year of making AI predictions. Neither of us is a computer or cognitive scientist, so we generally stay away from prognostication about AI technology or the specific ways it will rot our brains (though we do expect that to be an ongoing phenomenon!). Read More
How workers will adapt in the AI era
(McKinsey & Company) Based on task-level analysis of over 800 occupations, a deep dive look at 6,800 skills, and expert surveys, our research team at the McKinsey Global Institute estimate that the tasks which fill more than half of all U.S. work hours can, in theory, be automated with technologies that already exist. The silver lining is that AI cannot—and will not—completely replace the jobs of the people who complete those tasks for a living. Instead, work will change, and workers will adapt. Read More
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