R&D head Mike Griffin & deputy Lisa Porter resign. “I have never seen two political appointees leave together to pursue the same opportunity, but if they make a good team then there is nothing precluding that from happening.”
SASC trims hypersonics & robot ships, boosts ships & F-35s. “slash more than $100 million from hypersonic missile R&D — half of that from the Navy program — and over $430 million from prototypes of unmanned ships and submarines… The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program would get an additional $1.36 billion… Navy shipbuilding would grow by $1.35 billion.”
The Pentagon spent $300 million on defective and missing F-35 parts over the last five years, and lawmakers are furious. … Furious enough to add $1.36 billion to the program. And F-35 Lightning II can’t fly in… lightning.
DoD’s cybersecurity verification regime: new details emerge related to third-party auditor training and accreditation. An assessment process could take 6 months or more, and will be valid for 3 years. “Entities seeking to become a certified C3PAO must pay application and annual fees and be subject to an organizational background check. They will also have to sign a license agreement and code of professional conduct.”
F-16 production takes off at Greenville facility with finalized contracts. “The newest item on Lockheed’s to-do list, eight jets for the Bulgarian Air Force procured through a $5.1 billion contract finalized in April, will boost Lockheed’s production by 50%.”
Don’t underestimate the cost of selling to the federal government. “Prior government-sponsored studies have identified that the premium cost of government-unique processes and procedures can amount to 18%-25% or more of the standard cost of commercial transactions.”
SASC NDAA authorizes $250 million for Air Force R&D partnerships with launch industry. “… the committee disagrees with the Air Force’s decision to terminate R&D funding agreements with companies that don’t win a Phase 2 procurement contract.”
HASC chairman adds $150 million in NDAA for space launch. “The $150 million addition is for investments focused on the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 competition.”
US says 20 companies backed by China’s military. “The Trump administration has drawn up a list of companies from China that have ties to its military which may lay the groundwork for fresh U.S. sanctions.”
Unprecedented public report on UDFos requested from Senate Intel committee. “… this could easily become one of the most significant publicly available official reports on UAP/UFO encounters since the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book studies in the 1950s and 1960s.”
Thawing the frozen middle. “Quy Nguyen Huy, professor of strategy and management at INSEAD, found that approximately 80 percent of the 117 separate projects initiated by senior management had failed or had fallen short of expectations. In contrast, 80 percent of those initiated by middle managers had succeeded, bringing in $300 million in annual profits.”
The US Navy’s three great intellectual challenges. “Our task has not been to establish control over sea lanes, but to use our total control to project power far inland.”
To the employees of department of defense PlatformOne — stay remote. “Platform One is now the first federal office to go to a formal work-from-home model in the face of changing times.”
The rise of platform engineering. Interesting throughout. “The notion of container orchestration and its difficulties gave rise to Kubernetes. Kubernetes won the orchestration wars.”
It’s Business Time. “The Innovation theater and #innovation crowd creates the impression that something is happening out there, and they and others think highly of themselves.”
COVID cements OTAs place in the procurement landscape. “Notably, there is an increase in OTA activity in the non-defense civilian agencies, which have not made extensive use of OTAs in the past.”
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