Securing the MRAP by James Hasik pulls the curtains back on the inside story
There’s a new book, published last month, about one of the most important defense acquisition stories of the last twenty years: James M. Hasik, Securing […]
History
Why have companies opted out of government contracting?
The issue that Jeb and I got started with in puzzling over was the question of Pentagon acquisition and the ways in which Pentagon acquisition […]
Will the Navy’s battleforce have to shrink before it grows?
I’m a big believer right now that the United States Navy is probably gonna have to get smaller before it gets bigger. Right now the […]
DoD invites setbacks by relying on sequential measures of progress
Systems engineering techniques themselves contribute to disaster because they all are paper techniques and there are only two instead of N dimensions available. What we […]
If Congress doesn’t make multi-billion dollar weapon decisions, who should?
Senator Karl Mundt expressed it in hearings on PPBS conducted in 1967: We used to face the question: “How much should we spend for a […]
When can DoD get by without competitive prototyping?
Pierre Sprey testifies before Congress in a 1971 hearing “Weapon Systems Acquisition Process.” … if we cannot afford to execute a program under competitive prototype […]
Why James Forrestal opposed creating the Secretary of Defense
I would like to emphasize, as far as my opinion is concerned, and I offer it in all humility, that there are no easy solutions […]
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; […]
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, […]
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, […]
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 […]
Lessons from scientific management of US Army arsenals
It is possible to argue that theses savings in material costs were a large extent mere matters of bookkeeping. They were reductions only in a […]
Was the Soviet aircraft industry marked by profit-motive capitalism?
One of the major differences [in Soviet aerospace industry] is that the research institutes, the design bureaus, and the manufacturing plants are all under one […]
The birth of independent government cost estimation
Since the basic ingredients of the cost analysis concept being promoted were (1) independence from program proponent pressures and (2) use of historical, parametric relationships, […]
The false efficiency of systems analysis
The revolutionary manner in which McNamara made his decisions… transformed the “expert” career bureaucrat into the “novice” and the “inexperienced” political appointee into the “professional.” […]