From Marginal Adjustments to Meaningful Change: Rethinking Weapon System Acquisition
Abstract
In today's defense environment, pressure is growing on policy makers to make the defense acquisition system more nimble and effective. To help, prior to the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the RAND Corporation was asked to prepare a series of white papers as part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense's effort to provide the next administration with guidance on defense acquisition challenges in several areas likely to be of critical importance to the new defense acquisition leadership: competition, risk management, novel systems, prototyping, organizational and management issues, and the acquisition workforce. These efforts led to six occasional papers that offer thought-provoking suggestions based on decades of RAND and other research, new quantitative assessments, a RAND-developed cost-analysis methodology, and the expertise of core RAND research staff. This monograph, a compilation of those six papers, is designed to inform new initiatives for markedly improving the cost, timeliness, and innovativeness of weapon systems that DoD intends to acquire. Findings from this research include the following: Savings from Competition Are Not Inevitable; DoD Must Accept More Risk to Meet Demand for Novel Systems; Oversight Is Based on Dollar Value, Irrespective of Risk; Organizational Schisms and Rigid Processes Contribute to Inefficiencies; Evidence of the Benefits of Prototyping Is Mixed; and DoD Lacks Systematic Data on the Acquisition Workforce.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA531322
Entities
People
- Charles Nemfakos
- Irv Blickstein
- Jeffrey A. Drezner
- John L. Birkler
- Mark V. Arena
- Meilinda Huang
- Robert Murphy
- Susan K. Woodward
- Susan M. Gates
Organizations
- RAND Corporation