Recipe for Success

Yesterday, DefenseTech took a hard wack at the troubled Future Combat Systems (FCS) program to transform the Army into a faster, lighter (and less armored), networked force. The American taxpayer has seen FCS’s price tag balloon from $92 billion to nearly $150 billion (to transform only a third of the Army) while requirements have been dropped and even entire components canceled. And it turns out that:

the Army has now declared that neither the Paladin [artillery] replacement nor any other FCS vehicle is going to fit into a C-130, according to Defense News' Greg Grant. And that "appears to abandon the fundamental rationale for FCS, which was intended to speed Army brigades to combat zones around the world within 96 hours."

Over at Garfield Ridge, the feeling is that FCS lacked all the preconditions for major defense acquisition success from the beginning:

Just a few examples, definitely not all-inclusive:

-- It has to be cheap.

-- All its major milestones must be within the 5- to 6-year Future Year's Defense Program. Any program that won't deploy until after the FYDP means a program that's going to find its money kicked out of the FYDP.

-- Only one, maybe two leap-ahead technologys allowed per program. The rest of the program has to rely on stuff we've already done before, proven technology and concepts.

-- The requirements must be agreed upon by everyone: the warfighter, the program manager, the lead service, the prime contractor, AND the sub-contractors. If any requirements are introduced at a later date, everyone signs up to the new/modified requirement in blood-- none of this creep crap.

-- Consistent specs and standards are a must. If the design calls for a flathead screwdriver, the contractor better understand what a flathead screwdriver looks like.

-- Congress must not care about it. If it hates it, it will cut it and ruin program stability, particularly in the early years where it's needed most. If it loves it, it'll add unneeded money and unrealistic demands on the program. The best programs are always the ones that Congress keeps their noses out of.

-- The program must be small enough to fail.

That last one is probably the most important one of all.

Most of the Pentagon's acquisition trouble in recent years has occurred on programs that are quite simply too big to fail. Either the requirement is one that can't be ignored, thus forcing the development program into a fixed schedule-- never a good idea to do this stuff on a deadline-- or the program reaches a point where so much money has been spent on it that in the event of failure no one wants to cut their losses and try something new. The moment the contractor smells fear on the part of the Pentagon, once it knows no one in the Building has the guts to cancel the program as it goes south, that's when the Pentagon takes it in the wazoo from industry, often willingly.

Not surprising, the buckets of money continue to rain on FCS contractors. Defense Industry Daily notes that Boeing, one of the lead FCS contractors, just received a $219 million increment to its $17 billion contract.

Comments

[Sit T. Slicker]

Hey Earle, go easy on the youngins. They still think they need to use facts to make their arugments and not the more effective country sayins like, "Being President is hard." Or "You guys could put a coked-up rodeo bull to sleep."

[Earle McCurdy]

you guys could put a coked-up rodeo bull to sleep. where's the beef, huh, lefties?