Italian Defence Reform: Toward a New Logistics Support Model?

Logistic support has often been considered an ancillary issue within the defence procurement strategies of many MoDs, with negative trickle-down effects both on the system’s effectiveness and on process efficiency. Recently, a new trend has brought logistic support to become increasingly important in both operational and technological-industrial terms, with the progressive transition towards performance-based models. Indeed, these models revolutionized logistic support by committing the support supplier to the systems’ achieving precise performance targets. During the last decades, the Italian Ministry of Defence has also been trying to open up to new methods of logistic support. In this field, the 2015 White Paper highlighted the need for a review of the management model for acquisition, logistics and general support, including existing procedures, structures and norms by drawing on patterns from private companies and being guided by the basic principles of efficiency and effectiveness.