Two of the thorniest problems confronting PMs are: The length of time required to process procurement documents [and]… The length of time required to effect contractual changes. For example, a procurement request… typically must be reviewed and approved by 60 different people in 25 separate offices in the originating SYSCOM and Naval Material Command (NAVMAT) headquarters. “Simpler” procurements may involve only half as many approvals, but even that is an excessive number. As a result, the average procurement administrative lead time for negotiated contracts in excess of $1 million is approximately 240 days.
That was from the Navy/Marines Acquisition Review Council (NMARC) in 1974. The procurement administrative lead time (PALT) today is roughly the same as it was in the 1970s. For example, the GAO found that negotiated Army contracts valued at $1M to $50M was 250 days. As Jacques Gansler pointed out, “Most commercial firms have a procurement administrative lead time that is measured in minutes. The army used to take six months to a year to process a request.”
Seems not much has changed since the 1970s, but I’m sure if you looked at PALT in the 1950s it was a very different story. I’d like to see a meta-study of PALT estimates over time, but anecdotally Kelly Johnson at Lockheed got a letter contract for the P-80 drafted and approved within 90 minutes, and hammered out contract requirements over two hours with a general for the F-104 Starfighter. In 1955, the Navy’s F-4 Phantom II contract specifications fit on two pages. For the Polaris missile system, I like to regale folks with this anecdote from Harvey Sapolsky:
No one was allowed to think of the program in conventional terms. When a Navy field office accountant sought to apply the usual bureaucratic delays to FBM contractor requests, he was told that he would be immediately transferred to another, less desirable assignment if he attempted to do so again. “Think big or get out” was the message.”
The 1960s seems to be the time when PALT grew due to high requirements from McNamara and systems analysis to plan every step of the procurement prior to start. As Allan Schick noted:
When analysts are sure of their methods and data, and confident that they can handle all the important program relationships, spillovers, and uncertainties, they may be tempted to engage in systematic decision-making. Systems analysts in the Defense Department developed the “total package procurement” policy, under which a single contract would be negotiated to cover all phases of weapons choice, from design and research through procurement and delivery.
The first total package procurement contract was the C-5A in 1965. As Air Force assistant secretary and father of the TPP concept later stated:
We wanted a transport [C-5A] which has only a few basic requirements, such as cargo area, cruise speed, range, payload, takeoff and landing distances and conditions, and navigational capabilities. But it took us over 1,500 pages to say this. In reply, the five competitors sent in . . . 240,000 pages.
But it was not only that systems analysis led to the total package procurement, today known as the total systems performance responsibility. Lead times went up significantly across all new programs in the 1960s. Here’s an short exchange between General Bernie Schriever, father of the Atlas ICBM, and a congressional staffer in 1962:
Mr. Roback. “Well, is this the case, that there are new system concepts which are being proposed but not being acted upon? Do you consider that the emergence of new systems is proceeding at a satisfactory rate?”
General Schriever. “Well, from where I sit I think that we could move faster on certain of our programs. We have not really initiated a new system program for some time.”
Mr. Roback. “For some time. Can you give in a year basis, 2 years?”
General Schriever. “Well, it has been over a year. We have several under consideration now in the so-called definition phase… With respect to programs which are now under consideration, it has been that we are defining programs to a higher degree than we have in the past. Essentially this has been the factor that has delayed the initiation of programs as such.”
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