Costs, requirements, and the development of the jet engine
Here’s an excerpt from Robert Perry’s 1967 paper, “Innovation and Military Requirements: A Comparative Study.” In it, he finds that one of the inventors of […]
History
The choice between unique and diverse actions in weapons acquisition
For some problems, great gains will come from unique binding choices resulting from systems analyses; for others the gain will come from diversity of actions… […]
Can government programs move fast and take risks again? The Corona story.
There’s an excellent documentary called “The Corona Story – A Point in Time,” on the CIA’s Corona satellite reconnaissance program. It was was a truly […]
Defense industry consolidation geared up well before the “Last Supper”
The end of the Cold War and the “Last Supper,” where defense officials actively encouraged mergers between contracts, are often credited with the major consolidation […]
Is DoD wasting the creative resources of the country by dictating solutions?
Here is David Soergel, an industry consultant testifying to Congress in the 1975 hearing, “Major Systems Acquisition.” Sometimes new technology can offer solutions to problems […]
Great accomplishments do not the result from careful cost-effectiveness analysis
Here’s Admiral Hyman Rickover in “Cost Effectiveness Studies,” Excerpt from testimony May 11, 1966, hearings “Department of Defense Appropriations for 1967, Subcommittee on Department of […]
Data: How DoD reprogramming has changed (1961 – 2019)
I talk a lot about budget portfolios and PPBE reform on this blog. Today’s excessive detail in the defense budget requires long planning timelines. By […]
We are literally suffocating from excess manning and excessive management
Giant-size administrative overheads in military industry seem to be an American specialty. The French designed and built the Mirage III with a total engineering staff […]
The thorniest problem facing program managers: long lead times
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 […]
Trends in acquisition reform
I was playing around on Google NGram to see the relative importance of acquisition reform efforts over time. Interestingly enough, the term “Acquisition Reform” doesn’t […]
Rickover on the difference between administrators and engineers
Here’s Admiral Hyman Rickover in a 1971 Appropriations hearing*: There is an essential difference between the nontechnically trained or experienced administrator and the engineer. Administration […]
Should organization follow programs, or the other way around? Issues in PPBE reform
The main points which will be stressed in the succeeding paragraphs are: first, that PPBS has been and is being oversold and, in some ways, […]
How weapons become overoptimized to the point they become brittle
Here is Roland McKean, one of the founders of the DoD’s Planning-Programming-Budgeting system, who later in the 1960s saw the errors of what he helped […]
CSAF Brown’s struggle against bureaucracy and why there’s resistance to top-down plans
CSAF CQ Brown’s desire to accelerate decision making in the Air Force — “accelerate or lose” — seems to not be going as well as […]
Lessons in mobilization: The industrial base is too small and too slow
In the event of major war, the identified industrial base dedicated to the Army would be unable to produce sufficient materiel to support combat consumption […]