Pentagon acquisition executive John Young today approved mandatory prototyping, stricter program reviews, and other changes to the U.S. military's weapons-purchasing system.
This is the first major tweak to the Pentagon's so-called "5000-series" acquisition guidelines in more than five years. DoD officials said the goal was controlling costs and helping the services deliver products on time.
Former defense officials and defense experts, interviewed about the much-anticipated changes earlier this year, noted that the incoming Obama administration could undo any or all of the revisions.
In a Dec. 2 statement, Young said the changes reflect his "conviction that our policies must be more disciplined and effective to ensure that results are more predictable and that we are better stewards of taxpayer dollars."
For months, Young and his top acquisition deputies have floated the notion of forcing the military services and agencies to require bidders for some major contracts to build prototypes of their proposed system. The idea is codified in the policy changes.
"Programs will be required to implement acquisition strategies requiring a technology development phase, where two or more competing teams will produce prototypes of the system or key components," according to the statement. "Consequently, technologies will have to be demonstrated and proven before engineering development is initiated."
The changes also codify new development phases for new weapons and make others more crucial to keeping a program alive.
For instance, the revised acquisition guidelines call for major new systems to "proceed through a material development decision review to ensure they are based on approved requirements and a rigorous assessment of alternatives," according to the statement.
The new instruction also calls for "more frequent and effective program reviews to assess progress," according to DoD. Under this portion of the plan, preliminary design and critical design reviews will, as envisioned, "become significant program decision points to allow acquisition authorities to assess progress," according to the statement.
The new system will feature "technology readiness assessments," during which military services and agencies must show that specific technologies that will be used on a weapon system are ready to move into the "costly final phase of development," according to DoD.
The new acquisition guidelines also take aim at what defense officials and experts call "requirements creep."
It typically happens during the developmental phase of new systems when more and more features are added to a conceptual platform, often substantially inflating total program costs. And because the changes are added after initial cost estimates have been approved by senior Pentagon officials and Congress, it triggers sticker shock and heartburn in both the E-Ring and on Capitol Hill.
One tactic for ending this practice that Young has publicly endorsed for months, and which the new instruction will codify, is the use of "configuration steering boards."
Under the new policy, the boards will be used as "a forum that can preclude destabilizing requirements changes and avoid a problem that has traditionally contributed to increased costs and extended schedules."
Another change will be renaming the final phase of a major program's development cycle with the former moniker of "engineering and manufacturing development," or EMD.
"This name change is intended to emphasize the focus on engineering and manufacturing development during the final, costly phase that leads to initial production," according to the DoD statement. "Technology development and basic system design work should be accomplished in the earlier technology development phase."
Finally, the changes call for beefed-up testing and evaluation of developmental platforms. Under the new system, "test activity will be integrated into every acquisition development phase to facilitate early identification and correction of technical and operational deficiencies," DoD said.
The new directive also was signed by Charles McQuery, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, and John Grimes, assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration. McQuery touted the call for more testing.
"This policy revision incorporates all the policy initiatives I have supported - principal among them being integrated developmental and operational testing with results available to all," he said in the statement.
Grimes said in the statement that the new acquisition directive is key because it codifies "policy guiding early consideration of the radio frequency spectrum to enable better management of competing battlefield requirements that have become a growing concern in theater.
"As the DoD [chief information officer], this new instruction also reinforces early consideration of information security, information technology architecture, and interoperability to ensure we can continue to benefit from assured net-centric operations," Grimes added.
The Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is ready to test a few components that soldiers may have in their hands by 2010.
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