This paper suggests that data management acquisition procedures used by Government are often not cost effective. All sorts of military standards are deemed "the thing" when contractors' formats would suffice at a substantial savings. Data management acquisition procedures need an overhaul. The Naval Training Equipment Center (NAVTRAEQUIPCEN) has developed a Recommended List of Approved Data Item Descriptions (DID's) and DID numbers for a major weapon buy. This list must be tailored to the requirement. In addition, Data Management, Technical (DAMTEC), an automated system for tracking the Contract Data Requirements List (CDRL) items in contracts, has been developed to monitor the progress of the deliverable data and to serve as a data bank for use by project team members. This data bank provides cost comparison information based upon cost of data previously bought for various training equipment.