The Procurement Commission said the Air Force spent 8 years and $140 million just getting ready to start competition on the B-1. The Aegis case that this committee has pointed out is another disastrous example. There the specific requirement was laid down in June of 1964. It took the Navy 4 years to write a requirement and get on with trying to get some competition and move into a system design. The conclusion is that we are wasting a lot of time on that cycle at the front end.
It was amazing that the recommendation to cure this problem, OMB Circular A-109, would create more processes around the front end of acquisition and coincided with a Milestone Zero, or the validation throughout the bureaucracy of whether or not there was even a need for a concept to be explored. It’s sort of like the thought police, getting ahead of any action that might occur. Here’s the very next sentence from that quote:
What A-109 says to the front end, I have described. It says, let’s get on it and have a clear consensus and a go point.
A consensus on a new system concept is precisely the problem, because it just takes one person to veto the entire idea. Consensus requirements lead to adverse selection. By contrast, while nonconsensual decisions are more likely to result in failure, they also are the only ones that have the potential to generate 10x or 100x gains.
Source: “Hearings on Office of Management and Budget Circular A-109: Major System Acquisition Policy,” Before the Research and Development Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fifth Congress, First Session (Nov 1 and Dec 1, 7, 1977) and Second Session (Apr 6, 10, 14 and Sep 18, 1978).
Leave a Reply