WSARA One Year Later
Abstract
If the Weapon System Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 (WSARA, enacted May 22, 2009) is to have any lasting effect, the behaviors of the defense acquisition workforce must change. One of my major concerns is how we can better train our major defense acquisition program (MDAP) managers and support staffs in the practical application of the tenets or principles of WSARA, most of which are really not new; they just mean getting back to the basics of acquisition! This article addresses three key challenges of WSARA and outlines some actions we need to take to change the culture of our acquisition workers. Integrated Cost and Schedule Estimation First, we need to adopt an integrated team approach to cost and schedule estimation. For too long, we have left cost estimation to the cost estimators. To further aggravate the situation, we outsourced many of our government cost estimators in the 1990s and are paying the price today. In the past, we have expected the cost estimators alone to do the business of cost estimation, yet we never told them all they needed to know in order to prepare a realistic cost estimate. Then once we got their cost estimate, we pressed them to reduce the estimate to a more "affordable" number. We also hoped for new manufacturing processes and economies of scale that might keep the program affordable (for example the Joint Strike Fighter).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA536662
Entities
People
- William R. Fast
Organizations
- Defense Acquisition University