How the CBO estimates the cost of submarines
To estimate the cost of those future submarines, CBO used data for the ships’ closest analogue—the Virginia class submarines that had already been built. From […]
Blog Posts
Acquisition headlines
Pentagon’s Messaging on JEDI: Without it, Our Adversaries Win and Troops Lose. That’s quite a bit overstated, but it turned out to be an effective […]
US accounts for 46 percent of $385bn space industry
The world space economy is currently valued at over $385 billion. At least 666 intelligence satellites from 38 countries monitor the globe; 790 communications satellites […]
Does budget reform comply with the 10 rules for good reform?
Here is the insightful Peter Levine providing us 10 rules for reforming the Department of Defense: I’ve watched as every secretary of defense has sought […]
Israeli F-35s penetrate Iranian airspace undetected; Iran general sacked for cover-up
Israeli F-35 stealth fighters fly secret mission undetected in Iranian airspace. Teheran sacks air defence commander for failure to report intrusion… The [Kuwaiti] newspaper’s […]
Modular architecture, incremental decisions, and software acquisition
Jeff Boleng [USD(A&S) Special Assistant for Software]: Should we separate our hardware procurement and our software procurement, and maybe even look to different vendors to […]
What Adm. Moran said about bystanders and trust before he withdrew from CNO
Admiral William Moran will not be the next Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) because he maintained a friendship with a Navy Commander who sexually harassed […]
What, if anything, is new about DevSecOps?
So what is DevSecOps? You have to start by contrasting it to traditional software development process known as “waterfall,” in which work flows in a clear linear […]
Acquisition headlines
Elon Musk: “I have an idea for a vertical takeoff and landing supersonic jet.”. Why start with an ordinary supersonic jet when you could leap-frog […]
Competitive prototyping and pushing the state of the art
Only when the contractor is taking risks to develop the state-of-the-art and do something better than has ever been done before can there be much […]
DCMA has about 65,000 backlogged contracts
DCMA serves as the ACO [administrative contracting officer] with responsibility for more than 20,000 contractors and more than $223 billion in unliquidated obligations. In […]
How the Space Corps reorg is shaping up
Will the Space Force or Space Corps — whatever Congress decides to call it — legally count as a new armed service? creating a new organization for space […]
AI exposes challenges to cost estimation
Many people have written about how artificial intelligence can improve the business of cost estimating. However, those papers tend to focus on costing out industrial […]
Not all programs need to be rapid
Acquisition reform initiatives continue to make a difference, many resulting in delivering capability to the warfighter as quickly as possible. The key to success in […]
Update on rapid acquisition and delegation
Here is a GAO report on the implementation of DOD acquisition reform, including: (1) delegation of Major Defense Acquisition Programs from OSD control to the […]