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History

Financial managers: the “garrison in the conquered city” of the Pentagon?

April 21, 2020 Eric Lofgren 0

The principal antagonist of the Joint Chiefs within the central defense organization was the Comptroller. Like the JCS, however, his office afforded an excellent illustration […]

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Is small business hurt by industrial mobilization? Lessons from WWII.

April 18, 2020 Eric Lofgren 0

As a result of the impact of the gigantic national defense and war programs on our American economy, small business enterprise in the United States […]

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Alchian discovers classified nuclear data in 1954 using stock prices

April 11, 2020 Eric Lofgren 1

At RAND in 1954, Armen A. Alchian conducted the world’s first event study to infer the fissile fuel material used in the manufacturing of the […]

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Packard’s fly-before-you-buy principle

March 30, 2020 Eric Lofgren 2

Perhaps the best way to explain some variations of a practical fly-before-you buy policy is to take several examples. The AX program is one which […]

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The role of analysis in US and French airframing

March 21, 2020 Eric Lofgren 0

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, […]

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Can we do away with judgment/intuition in systems design?

March 18, 2020 Eric Lofgren 0

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 […]

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Growth of contract regulations

March 14, 2020 Eric Lofgren 0

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., […]

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What is holding modular open systems back in defense?

March 11, 2020 Eric Lofgren 1

When used in conjunction with such concepts as modularity and functional partitioning—the use of self-contained functional components to build systems—the open systems approach was also […]

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Defense is too big, complex, dispersed to be managed from a single point

March 6, 2020 Eric Lofgren 2

It has been suggested in some quarters that I am unwilling to decentralize decision-making authority. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I strongly believe […]

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The extreme wisdom of duplication in military acquisition

February 28, 2020 Eric Lofgren 2

We enter a scene at a Congressional hearing in April 1944 — just months ahead of the D-Day landings — where top defense officials were […]

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Lessons for Today: Opposition to ballistic missiles in the 1940s/50s

February 25, 2020 Eric Lofgren 2

There was, without question, deep and sincere opposition to the accelerated development of ballistic missiles. It was chiefly effective in the years between 1950 and […]

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When should cost-effectiveness studies start?

February 21, 2020 Eric Lofgren 0

… you can’t apply cost effectiveness to really basic research. Otherwise you never would discover new genes in biology for example if you had to […]

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Commercial contracting for space launch, then and now

February 15, 2020 Eric Lofgren 0

Working together with industry to identify and resolve problem areas, NASA has evolved innovative contracting approaches which emulate good commercial contracting practices while retaining some […]

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On the design of government reporting requirements

February 3, 2020 Eric Lofgren 0

One has to be very careful in the way this is put. I do not favor standardized forms in the sense that the Government literally […]

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The problem of metric selection for operational testing

January 31, 2020 Eric Lofgren 0

I would be perfectly willing operationally to test anything anybody can name without having measures of effectiveness or criteria for the test. I am also […]

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