However, because radically slashing the Department is not feasible in the current international environment, due to the need to keep Americans safe, there has traditionally been less of an incentive for the DoD to institute effective quality control methods, compared with private industries.

Corruption and waste regarding the awarding of government contracts is of great concern. There is a so-called 'revolving door' whereby government officials work for the government for a number of years, then shift to more lucrative careers in private industry and use their connections and influence to gain government contracts for businesses. These businesses may not offer the least expensive 'bids' or even the highest quality, if their proposals are viewed in an objective fashion.

"Previous attempts to achieve improvements have traditionally consisted of more quality audits, reports, additional testing and inspection, legal battles over contract compliance, and prosecution for fraud…the DoD Total Quality Management (TQM) strategy"...
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