Pitfalls of the Defense Acquisition System - Experience is the Key to Success

Abstract

This paper researches the Department of Defense sssssss Acquisition Policy and Process and provides the potential pitfalls that an ACAT 1D program can face as it progresses from Technical Development and into System Design and Demonstration (SDD). The inquiry will be accomplished by examining the Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) (ACAT 1D) Airborne Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance program as a representative case study. The Department of Defense's Acquisition Process has been called into question several times over the last twenty years. The induced acquisition reform cycles and changes to the guiding acquisition regulation series have resulted in updates to the material acquisition process for ACAT 1D programs. These process changes provide confirmation for the Department and Services of a program sssssss preparedness to proceed to a Milestone B decision and into SDD. While the process and checks are designed to ensure program success measured by adherence to Acquisition Program Baseline cost, schedule and performance limits, programs continue to breach one or more of these measures. In the first quarter, FY06, of the eighty-five programs reported to Congress in the Selected Acquisition Report, 47% reported Nunn-McCurdy unit cost breaches. This analysis reviews the DoD acquisition policy and reform initiatives and then researches the current DoD acquisition policy and process as it was applied to the ACS program. This paper then researches the current process pitfalls that affected the ACS Program. This is followed by an analysis of the recent Defense Acquisition Process Assessment and discusses whether it will be effective in causing meaningful reform. This paper then suggests changes that should be made to the acquisition process and provides insights that can be used to help future programs avoid the pitfalls that the ACS program faced during its contract execution.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 17, 2007
Accession Number
ADA493581

Entities

People

  • Steven Drake

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • C4I
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Business Administration
  • Contracts
  • Cost Estimates
  • Governments
  • Human-Machine Interfaces
  • Imagery Intelligence
  • Information Operations
  • Military Acquisition
  • National Security
  • Procurement
  • Reliability
  • Surveillance
  • Systems Engineering
  • Test And Evaluation
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management