The continuation of prototyping programs will clearly be helpful in preserving and strengthening industrial design teams which I am convinced can develop a great deal more capability if they are working continuously in an area rather than in the stop and go fashion which has been typical in many past cases.
Too often now it has been my experience that we are not fully satisfied with the program we have, but we must continue on because we simply have no other choices.
That was former DepSecDef David Packard on Sep 16 1971. “Department of Defense Appropriations for 1972” Subcommittee of the committee on appropriations, House of Representatives, 92nd Congress, 1st Session, Part 9.
I think these two points are underappreciated in today’s debates about prototyping. First, the employment and sales stabilization of continuous prototyping work reduces costs tremendously compared to the once-in-a-generation major development. High skilled engineering talent shouldn’t find their jobs at risk because of government’s cyclical approach to systems development. Similarly, the huge expenses incurred on bid & proposal costs, which amount to paper plans than functioning anything, should be cut substantially when families of functioning prototypes take their stead.
Second, it is painfully clear nearly 50 years after Packard said these words that the Pentagon sticks with its poorly performing programs for no other reason than there is no other option. That lock-in effect is 100 percent the government’s own fault. It isn’t clear how much is the Pentagon’s vs. Congress, because certainly Congress pushes the Pentagon into these single, massive, multi-mission platforms that are predicted to have far lower costs but then end up a boondoggle. By the time a program is in severe problems, at the F-35 was before 2010, protecting jobs in districts becomes another factor that prohibits competitor developments from starting.
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