One of the U.S. Navy’s program executive offices is a few months into a pilot program aimed at enabling rapid acquisition, which could pave the way for a larger change in how the military branches develop and buy weapons systems.
Program Executive Officer for Integrated Warfare Systems Rear Adm. Seiko Okano was tapped this fall to lead a pilot program centered on two efforts: finding creative solutions to warfighter problems that can be tested and fielded quickly, and then considering how to change the budgeting process so these new capabilities can be quickly purchased.
Full article, HERE from Navy Times.
Funny, I remember the battles we had from 2003 onward about getting ‘stuff’ the warfighters needed/wanted to them ‘through’ the acquisition process.
I know a couple of the things I worked on took 12 years from final R&D testing to actually making it to the Fleet, and these were deemed ‘critical’ items!
I also remember being in meetings with higher where the statement got made more than once of “What do you want me to kill to get your stuff funded?” And getting laughed at when obsolete programs were proposed because they had congresscritters ‘protecting’ those programs… sigh…
This will last just long enough for something else to bubble up and get folk’s attention, and it will die a quiet death in the back halls of the Pentagon.
Hey Old NFO;
Ya Know, someone HAS to reinvent the wheel…again. Us Old farts will sit back and watch the entertainment. And make snide comments…LOL
Mark Nissen did a study on Naval Procurement. He determined that the problem was structural. There were too many levels of approval required even for mundane purchases like toilet paper and gray paint.
He was patted on the back and told to go away.
People within the beast decided to quietly “test” his theory. They determined that every approval “level” auto-calibrated to bounce half of the requests which were then reinserted into the system at the first approval level. Since all buys were over a million dollars, all purchases had to penetrate four approval levels.
Another issue was that the paperwork percolated through the system and landed in the shortest in-basket. The chances of a request being reviewed by the person who bounced it before was slight so it did not have a freebie through any level.
Nissen’s solution was that commodity buys should be approved at the Chief Petty Officer level and no higher. The lowest-price supplier who has data showing that his offering meets-the-spec gets the business. Done and Done. If the product is not acceptable then the specs must be changed.
Most of the buys were for commodities.
I think the same issues apply to weapon’s development. Every officer wants to put his fingerprints on it as a monument to his awesomeness.
The company I retired from made a piece of gear for the USN to solve a problem with a class of vessels. It work well and still in service 25 years after it’s adoption.
We made the same gear for use in commercial vessels as well other pieces equipment that use diesel engines. That unit has been upgraded to work faster and cheaper. It’s as close to sailor proof as mortals can make it.
Does the USN use the improved gear? No! The reasons that come out of NAVSEA are no money for evaluation and the old stuff works “good enough”.
The big issue is that electronic parts that were plentiful 25 years ago are nonexistent nowadays. I voted to kill the product before I retired but was overruled.
Once in the system it stays in the system.
That sounds familiar. In the mid ’80s, I worked on fixing a bug in a display IC that was used in the AWACS. Pain in the tail, too. The raw part is that I used the commercial alternative to that one 10 years previously. That one outperformed the Mil part (over the full MilSpec temp range, no less). It would have worked perfectly as a pop-in unit, but nope.
People who think that a widget breat because it’s “MilSpec” seem to forget it was made by the lowest bidder and was frozen in the design stage before they were even born.
Gerry,
We have the same problem in nuclear power plants. Components that were the best available at the time of design, were throughly tested (shake and bake) and installed ten years after the systems were deigned, begin to fail after a normal lifetime of twenty years. They can’t just be replaced with the modern commercial equivalent without extensive analysis ($$$$). Of course, the original manufacturer either gave up their nuclear QA or is out of business. Arrrgh.
Shoot , I had to mooch off other divisions/departments to get the tools listed on my MRC Cards to do my maintenance . Always a mad scramble to get the shtt together for spot checks usually with a Dept. head from another Dept. It wasn’t high tech tools either , thank God for snipes and airedales , who could hook you up . Airedales were also great hookups for box lunches (they always had’em) , if you didn’t want to wait in line for 45 minutes up two ladders and into the hangar bay to get some chow . I hated being on an aircraft carrier , never took orders to one after Nimitz .
Bosun: I maintained some mission-critical USN stuff which used special air filters. I ended up using my old t-shirts.
“took 12 years from final R&D testing to actually making it to the Fleet,”. Presumably 12 years too late.
AF RCO was set up to bypass the majority of the standard procurement procedures, cutting timeline and unnecessary oversight. Keeping programs “in the dark”, especially deep dark, cuts oversight and layers of problems as well. The normal DoD Acquisition system seems to be a process that has, like most projects and programs, outgrown itself and added layers of unnecessary bureaucracy.
AF RCO has been demonstrated to other agencies, but there has to be an assimilation of the principals by leadership, and the unnecessary bureaucrats pushed to the side.
Insert Instapundit comment about “too few opportunities for graft” here, although to be fair, in most cases it’s not so much outright graft as it is protecting one’s rice bowl.
Back in ’83 the Army had this thing called the Hgh tech test Bed here at Ft Lewis, and everyone was marveling at how a SPC4 could say “Hey, wouldn’t it be great if we…?” and his CO could go into Tacoma and buy a bunch of whatever gadget it was…
I don’t think we kept anything* from the HTTB (AKA “Here, try this bullshit!”), streamlined procurement sure made no mark.
*Eventually a lot of the things we were testing came about, but it took 9/11, and about the only thing that stuck was drones.
My experience – in a very different service – is that standard is set by those close to the political centre, and inflicted on the rest of us, regardless of differing needs and budgets.
All- Thanks, and yes, I saw it on active duty too! Grrr…
I remember an Army Chief of Staff lamenting about the process while discussing the program to replace the 1911. He said something to the effect he could walk into Cabela’s and get what the Army needed for a fraction of what was being spent on the Army’s least important firearm.
The Russians figured out (because of sanctions) that you can get ALL kinds of useful shit “off the shelf”, with free shipping with purchases larger than…
They have been upgrading their anti aircraft electronic warfare gear in a matter of days to weeks EVERY TIME we introduce a new something. Our (deep state/political/business) corruption will be the Wests downfall.
The best depiction of how bad weapons acquisition is under our MIC systems, was a new idea to kill armor and other objects, from 3 foot-soldier types (mid ranker) at least 10+ years ago.
Really simple, really cheap (BIG PROBLEM!!!), really effective.
Their idea was to launch small missiles from a box in the rear of a JEEP (shows you how long ago this was), that were fibre optic connected to the launcher/controller. Launch one straight up, and then arc it over the battlefield, while using the nose camera view to hunt for a target that would be hit from a vertical perspective. Very accurate, pick the hand size point you want to wack, and put the crosshair on it. They used as much OTC parts as they could, and the demonstration video in the field was amazing.
I think the launcher held at least a dozen missiles, might have been two dozen. Launch, then move the Jeep, as the shooter could control it while someone else drove the vehicle. Missile was not easily seen while active, especially as the idea was to get way up above normal vision on a battlefield to give the shooter time to find a target if lacking outside data. Basically a long range mortar round that you fire and THEN aim.
TPTB couldn’t kill it fast enough, it seemed.
I’ve been expecting the Ukies to put this into production any time now.