WASHINGTON — Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's top acquisition official, knows time is running out on the Obama administration, but he hopes to set the table for the next round of his Better Buying Initiative.

Speaking at the Common Defense forum Wednesday, Kendall was asked what a fourth iteration of his Better Buying Initiative – perhaps his signature series of policies – could look like. 

Kendall zeroed in on a single word: "sustainability." 

"I've already started some work on this," Kendall said. "We had done a lot of work under the early revisions of Better Buying Power on service contracting in particular. It was something we had in 1.0, we kept working and refining in 2.0 and 3.0. The thing we have not put a full court press on is the sustainment part."

Kendall said there were "a few things I want to kick off" in that regard as the year winds down, but held up the idea of factoring in sustainment costs to source selections as one concept he is thinking about. 

"It’s hard to do that because the costs are a long way away," Kendall acknowledged, "but I think we need to do a better job about that. So sustainment to me is sort of the thing we have not put enough scrutiny on, we have not done enough about. So if I’m here to do a 4.0, even if I’m not, I think that is where we should look to next from a point of efficiency."

Better Buying Power 3.0 was rolled out in April 2015, with a focus on bringing commercial technology into the Pentagon. At the time, Kendall said he had no idea what a 4.0 iteration could look like.

Speaking Wednesday, Kendall added that the Pentagon "should continue all the things we’re doing on cost conciseness." But in an interview with Defense News, he stressed that being aware of costs has never been about cutting profits for the big defense firms.

"Profit margins have stayed flat or gone up a little bit in the last several years. So I think we have kept our commitment to industry to not have a ‘War on Profit,’ " Kendall said. "Sales have come down because budgets have come down, but I think we have worked with industry to craft win-win business deals where they maintain profitability but we also got better results, and that is what our goal was."

Aaron Mehta was deputy editor and senior Pentagon correspondent for Defense News, covering policy, strategy and acquisition at the highest levels of the Defense Department and its international partners.

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