Acquisition headlines
US Air Force bails on Mattis-era fighter jet readiness goal. Abandoned 80 percent mission-capable rates. Let’s say you increase force structure to 386 squadrons at […]
Blog Posts
Accelerating software development by orders of magnitude
While some of these programs are classified, others have been able to share their results. For instance, the United Platform is working to push cyber […]
Please bring back the Rapid Innovation Fund — and fund it well!
The architect of the Navy’s RIF [Rapid Innovation Fund] program, Brad Pantuck, was at the event as well. He said, “About 40 percent of our […]
Creating high-reliability organizations in the Department of Defense
High-reliability organizations are an example of a topic that I believe has not received attention in military history. Sociologist Charles Perrow’s Normal Accidents was published […]
How much oomph is left in rapid acquisition reform?
We’ve seen this pendulum swing drastically over the last few decades. In the middle of the 20th Century we saw thousands of companies iteratively delivering […]
6 pathways and 14 functional areas to make up new acquisition policy framework
A presentation by ASD(Acquisition) Kevin Fahey to the advisory board for George Mason’s Center for Government Contracting went into the details of the AAF and […]
Frank Kendall fires a shot across the bow of CMMC
The CMMC [Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification] Accreditation Body’s website shows an estimate that there will need to be 10,000 licensed Assessors trained and working full time […]
Acquisition headlines (5/3/2020)
‘I Could Solve Most of Your Problems’: Eric Schmidt’s Pentagon Offensive. New report says SLS rocket managers concerned about fuel leaks. NASA invested 10 years […]
Technical progress requires a political process assuming diverse and legitimate interests
It is seldom contended that politics and technology are not separate endeavors and, indeed, that politics is not primary. But if the distinction is to […]
Air Force reorganizes acquisition for Fighters and Bombers
The Air Force Materiel Command’s Air Force Life Cycle Management Center will split Fighters and Bombers Directorate into a Fighters and Advanced Aircraft Directorate and […]
Few defense firms closed due to Covid-19, and more industry impacts
Defense Contract Management Agency data shows that about 106 out of 10,509 primary Pentagon contractors are closed. 68 companies have closed but subsequently reopened. On […]
Armen Alchian’s radical proposal for military R&D — will we ever take heed?
When analyzed together, they confirmed the hypotheses that Armen Alchian had first made in 1953 about the dangers of applying systems analysis to weapons acquisition […]
Should the Pentagon look to Detroit-style or Hollywood-style markets?
With the microphone and with recording devices [for example], you can reach the whole globe. So, that’s a huge improvement in productivity of a singer. […]
Software tooling: The next technology high ground for interservice rivalry
… the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command Software Engineering Center is taking on the challenge with an ambitious initiative known as the Software Engineering Environment, or […]
Acquisition headlines
DoD officials are extremely aware, almost to the point of paranoia, that even discussing the issue of NRO potentially being subsumed by the Space Force […]