Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs

Abstract

Since fiscal year 2000, DOD has significantly increased the number of major defense acquisition programs and its overall investment in them. Major Unfortunately, during this same time period, acquisition outcomes did not improve. Based on our analysis, total acquisition costs for the fiscal year 2007 portfolio of major defense acquisition programs increased 26 percent from first estimates, whereas the 2000 portfolio increased by 6 percent. Likewise, development costs for fiscal year 2007 programs increased by 40 percent from first estimates, compared to 27 percent for fiscal year 2000 programs. In most cases, programs also failed to deliver capabilities when promised often forcing warfighters to spend additional funds on maintaining legacy systems. Our analysis shows that current programs are experiencing an average delay of 21-months in delivering initial capabilities to the warfighter, a 5-month increase over fiscal year 2000 programs. Of the 72 weapon programs we assessed this year, no program had proceeded through system development meeting the best practices standards for mature technologies, stable design, and mature production processes all prerequisites for achieving planned cost, schedule, and performance outcomes. Eighty-eight percent of the programs in this assessment began system development without fully maturing critical technologies according to best practices. Ninety-six percent of the programs had not met best practice standards for demonstrating mature technologies and design stability before entering the more costly system demonstration phase. Finally, no programs we assessed had all of their critical manufacturing processes in statistical control when they entered production, and most programs were not even collecting data to do so. Also, programs assessed this year did not improve on the level of knowledge attained at critical junctures from those assessed in 2005.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA479603

Entities

People

  • Arthur Gallegos
  • Brian Mullins
  • Bruce Fairbairn
  • David B. Best
  • Matthew B. Lea
  • Michael J. Sullivan
  • Quindi C. Franco
  • Ridge C. Bowman
  • Thomas J. Denomme
  • William R. Graveline

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircraft Industry
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Boats
  • Combat Areas
  • Marine Transportation
  • National Security
  • Naval Operations
  • Naval Warfare
  • Navy
  • Rockets
  • Short Takeoff Aircraft
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Transport Aircraft
  • Warning Systems
  • Weapons Effects

Readers

  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis
  • Mathematics or Statistics
  • Military Science and Technology Research and Modernization.