In 1947, the “Bible” of the nation’s military contractors—Armed Forces Procurement Regulation—was a slim volume of about 100 to 125 pages long. Today, the A.F.P.R., which governs in minute detail all those who do business with the Pentagon, has expanded to four huge volumes totaling something like 1,200 pages, with new ones added daily.
Five to seven years ago, according to the careful statistical average compiled by one major defense contractor, it required four to five months to execute a contract from the time of an acceptable price quotation was received in the Pentagon to the time the contractor received the final document. Today [1965], the same contractor estimates that an average of nine to twelve month is needed for the same process.
That was from “Slow-Down in the Pentagon,” by Hanson W. Baldwin, Foreign Affairs January 1965. AFPR (also called ASPR) was replaced by the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which today has 37 chapters, with the first chapter containing over 2,000 pages. Then there is also the cost accounting standards as well as numerous supplementary material in implementation guides and data item descriptions.
Back in the late 1950s, the process from receiving a quote to executing a contract took about 4-5 months. In 1965, it grew to 9-12 months. Recently in 2017, USD(A&S) Ellen Lord had been working to reduce the timeline of request for proposal (RFP) to contract from an average of 30 months. Perhaps the timeline did not grow so much, considering the 30 month figure includes the time for contractors to prepare a quote/proposal whereas the other figures do not.
It is in part due to that desire for clear-cut requirements which slows down the contract process for major systems. Here’s another good part, where Baldwin quotes Dr. Welsh on the requirements “merry-go-round”:
If we had required a clear-cut prior mission, we would probably have developed no airplanes, no spacecraft, or, in fact, no wheel.
That sentiment is in fact the opposite of what we are taught in acquisition today: that a good program/contract is one where requirements are well-defined up front. The requirements-pull approach may work well when you are buying a commodity, but perhaps not as much for innovation which necessitates a more continuous interaction of requirements and technology.
Leave a Reply