Technical Communications in Defense Industry

Restricting its attention to those non-policy-making technical communications within the defense industry, this paper attempts 1) to show the importance of such communications by means of practical examples, 2) to survey and evaluate current systems employed for both internal and external communications by firms of differing size, and 3) to suggest possible alternative systems for ameliorating extant problems. In particular, it is maintained that within an increasingly competitive environment, it is management's responsibility to foster those systems of communication which minimize losses resulting from the duplication of effort. Possible methods for attaining this end are discussed, resulting in the specific conclusion that a more highly integrated, centrally located group would diminish wasted engineering time by recording all relevant technical information in such a manner that it would be easily accessible to the engineering staff.