Modeling the impact of COVID-19 on defense contract obligations
We don’t even have to look back as far as the 2008 crisis to predict the scale of potential losses. When sequestration hit in 2013, […]
Blog Posts
Evaluating price for Other Transactions contracts: call for ideas
The 2018 DOD OTA Guidebook states: “The Government team shall determine price reasonableness. The Government team may need data to establish price reasonableness, including commercial […]
Could the Pentagon have had modern enterprise software tools 15 years earlier?
Preparation for Joint Warfighting is impeded by difficulties inherent in equipping a Joint Force by the separated Services. Divisions continue like fractals to the finest […]
Updated defense costing policy released
On March 13 2020, the new DoD Instruction 5000.73 was released as part of the 5000.02 rewrite for Adaptive Acquisition Framework. It provides new guidance […]
Acquisition headlines
SecNav Modly wants to reduce spending over 5 years by $40 billion to pump shipbuilding and readiness. Here’s how ComNavOps would go about it. Includes […]
The role of analysis in US and French airframing
In Europe, analysis plays a radically different role in aerospace development. A French project team for example, will provide its customer with a dossier calcul, […]
Deconstructing major programs through adherence to standards
The thing we’re going to have to show is that we can deconstruct a major effort like this — not run it like a major […]
Using the Defense Production Act to combat COVID-19
The DPA was inspired by laws from 1941 and 1942 that gave the White House the ability to tell private companies what to make for the good […]
Can we do away with judgment/intuition in systems design?
The judgement inherent in this balancing of programs and systems can no longer be intuitive or rely on past experience alone. The range of choice […]
Kessel Run origin story
During his deployment, as a multi-million-dollar drone tracked the enemy ground vehicles, Capt. Kroger used Google Earth to estimate distance and then crudely time the […]
Production can be 1,000% harder than design, says Elon Musk
Designing the production system of a new product is at least an order of magnitude or two orders of magnitude harder than designing to initial […]
Acquisition headlines
Will Roper on the Air Force pitch bowl: “Post SXSW cancellation, we changed our Pitch Bowl in Austin to a YouTube Live event. Results were […]
Growth of contract regulations
In 1947, the “Bible” of the nation’s military contractors—Armed Forces Procurement Regulation—was a slim volume of about 100 to 125 pages long. Today, the A.F.P.R., […]
Will the MQ-9 follow the digital century-series pattern?
The Air Force is looking for a replacement to the stalwart MQ-9 Reaper and intends to explore options ranging from commercial drones built by emerging tech […]
Podcast: Leaping the valley of death with Matt Steckman
Matt Steckman joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss about a wide range of issues facing growth-stage companies in the defense industry. He […]