Defense acquisition reform is the buzzkill of defense conferences. Conference attendees are riveted by sessions with titles like "Iraq: The Endgame," and pretty much anything involving UAVs, but panel discussions on streamlining the acquisition process and controlling costs are as likely to put you to sleep as a sleeping pill.
So it is with some trepidation that I introduce a post on defense contracting. It's not sexy, but you should read about it anyway because there are lot of zeros on the checks the U.S. Treasury makes out to Lockheed Martin, Boeing and their friends in the defense industrial complex. Yesterday's post on how the Navy spent $885 million and 13 years building an Advanced SEAL Delivery System that doesn't work is the perfect example of why you should care. In case you missed it, a new GAO report says the ASDS doesn't work because the Navy didn't sensibly manage its contract with Northrop Grumman, assumed most of the responsiblity for what turned out to be a dud and failed to give the contractor any incentive to control costs. Turns out this isn't an isolated problem, according to Federal Computer Week.
The magazine has an interesting look this week on the Defense Department's high-risk culture of technology acquisition. Basically, DOD tends to favor high-risk, immature technologies that promise a giant leap in capability over incremental development. The situation could spiral out of control (pun intended) as development of expensive, complex systems-of-systems like the Army's Future Combat Systems ratchet up the stakes.
"We're not getting the outcomes we’re paying for, the weapon systems we are getting cost significantly more than what we contracted for, and they don’t always do what they’re supposed to do,” said Paul Francis, GAO's director of acquisition and sourcing management, in an interview with FCW. The magazine cites Joint Tactical Radio System, Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, and the System-of-Systems Common Operating Environment as examples of the problem.
GAO concluded in an April 2006 report that nearly 80 percent of the acquisition programs it reviewed were launched without a sound business case for doing so.
Francis says interested parties have too much invested in the current system to change.
Francis offered one explanation for why leaders appear unable to fundamentally reform defense contracting. “If we were more realistic in estimating costs and schedules, we’d have higher cost estimates and we’d have to approve fewer projects,” he said. “DOD would get fewer of the things it wants, less work would come to congressional districts, contractors would make less money, and there would be fewer jobs,” he added. “As long as the way we’re doing these contracts meets the needs of the participants, we’ll continue to do them this way.”
--Catherine MacRae Hockmuth
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