Rickover’s take on professionalism in Navy R&D
The naval profession, if you can call it a profession, is engineering. It isn’t a profession actually, because in a profession you have certain responsibilities; […]
Blog Posts
Mission-based budgets, getting real oversight, and DoD transformation
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA): I’m honestly a little bit more on the side of we need to blow up the whole system here because the […]
Acquisition headlines (7/19 – 7/25/2021)
Acquisition rules block the building of war-winning networks. (Air Force Magazine) “… “believe it or not, we found that the primary barriers to being able […]
DoD’s intellectual property debate in two minutes
Mandy Smithberger [POGO]: Something that the department’s starting to emphasize more that I hope congress will support is that we get the intellectual property rights […]
Interpersonal confidence as a basis for weapon systems choice
Consequently, a good technical feasibility evaluation must consider not only the state of the art in a very objective sense, but also the competence, insight, […]
Adam Smith on budget flexibility and congressional self-interest
Of course there is the procurement cycle, which to make it very simple, it’s too long. As technology is changing rapidly, if you’re saying that […]
Senate leaders call for more predictability in shipbuilding, but is that the wrong lever?
Since the 1960s, 14 U.S. shipyards that construct ships for the Navy have closed, and three have left the defense industry. Only one new shipyard has […]
Acquisition headlines (7/12 – 7/18/2021)
Biden to nominate defense industry expert Andrew Hunter as Air Force acquisition boss. (Air Force Times) “Hunter landed the nomination because of his past work […]
What’s holding back SBIR and new entrants from transforming DoD?
After proving the efficacy and competitive strength of the technology procured via a SBIR award, federal agencies are required by law to work in good […]
Can building the factory around software cut defense costs by half?
We certainly don’t think we will be disrupting Lockheed Martin or Boeing. So, buying like a 747, for example, 70% of the cost of that […]
When DoD could move contracts and requirements in just hours
Kelly [Johnson] loved to tell how a general named Frank Carroll was so enthusiastic hearing Kelly describe the speed and maneuverability of the new P-80, […]
Mission Integration Network Control: DARPA’s ambitious program for command and control
Historically the DoD approach to building communications systems models a vertically- integrated stack. Today both DoD and commercial approaches deconstruct this stack moving away from […]
Acquisition headlines (7/5 – 7/11/2021)
DoD cancels $10B JEDI contract. (Fed Scoop) “Acting DOD CIO John Sherman told reporters Tuesday that while JEDI was conceived in 2017 with “noble intent,” […]
What led to the decline of the Army’s arsenal system?
Perhaps the most significant causal event that signaled the demise of the arsenal system was the gradual centralization of decision-making authority within the Office of […]
DoD experiments with bots to automate price reasonableness
As part of a pilot project now underway, the service [US Army] is experimenting with bots that can scrape through the bills of materials (BOMs) […]