Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA)

DoD Directive 5105.64 establishes DCMA as a Defense Agency and combat support agency under sections 191 through 193 of title 10, performing contract administration services for DoD components and, by arrangement, other agencies. The agency stood up on March 27, 2000, formed from the Defense Contract Management Command inside the Defense Logistics Agency.

The workload arrives by delegation. FAR 42.202 lets the contracting officer send a contract to the cognizant contract administration office, with functions withheld or specifically authorized in the delegation, and DFARS 242.202 bars DoD activities from retaining any contract that needs administration at or near contractor facilities, subject to a short exception list. Those contracts go to DCMA, whose administrative contracting officers work the FAR 42.302 functions across cost, performance, and delivery.

Coverage is where assumptions bite. Installation-level work goes to DCMA only on request and by prior agreement, ammunition, Navy shipbuilding, and Office of Naval Research contracts sit outside its normal support, and the delegation controls which functions the ACO may perform. A buying office that assumes DCMA is watching an undelegated contract learns otherwise at the first late delivery.