At his Oct. 4 confirmation hearing to become the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, John Young said he supports having a full advisory role on the Defense Department’s Joint Requirements Oversight Council. That panel, composed of senior military officials, plays a major role in setting requirements for DOD programs.
“Full…membership may be appropriate,” he wrote in response to advance questions provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
At the hearing, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said she favored participation of DOD’s top civilian acquisition official on the panel to oversee what she said is “a lot of back scratching,” a reference to interservice program trade-offs between the military branches.
— Sebastian Sprenger
John Young, the nominee to be the Defense Department’s top acquisition official, sent senior military leaders a memo last month stating that all pending and future programs may proceed only if program officials make a significant change in their acquisition policy. Officials will be required to have two or more competing teams develop prototypes during early program stages.
According to the document, an increased emphasis on competition and prototyping would reduce technical risks, validate system designs and evaluate manufacturing processes. “In total, this approach will also reduce time to fielding,” the memo states.
The document was first reported by Insidedefense.com. A copy is available on the Web site of Washington-based government watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.
POGO defense investigator Nick Schwellenbach said the memo enacts a much-needed change in policy at DOD. “Let’s force the contractors to come to us with more developed ideas,” he said.
Schwellenbach said a competitive prototyping policy could possibly have helped avoid cost overruns and reliability problems in the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program.
He added that Young’s new policy could lead to competition among industry prototypes competing for the Air Force’s high-priority Combat Search and Rescue vehicle program if the service issues new requests for proposals for the program. In August, the Government Accountability Office called for a re-evaluation of proposals for the program after it sustained protests from Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky against the Air Force’s choice of Boeing to supply the helicopter.
Besides the anticipated benefits of lower cost and more timely product delivery, the new competitive prototyping policy could lead to a number of secondary benefits, Young wrote.
For example, the practice would exercise and develop the interplay between government and industry management teams, he wrote. In addition, an increased emphasis on prototyping would help develop and enhance systems engineering skills, retain critical engineering skills throughout the government and the industrial base, and attract young talent to the field of science and engineering, according to the document.
DOD officials have said the United States’ graduation rate of technical and engineering students is rapidly falling behind that of possible U.S. competitors, such as China.
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