Digging Out of Procurement Quagmire : The Way We Acquire Our Weapons Is Hopelessly Out of Date

There is not much of a holiday atmosphere at the Pentagon, what with budget-cutting pressures, unfunded program commitments, troubled weapons systems and difficult strategic and arms-control problems facing President-elect George Bush’s new defense team.

If only because of public concern following the recent Pentagon procurement scandal, no item on this overloaded menu is more urgent than the way that the government acquires its weapons systems. But that uproar, and its ongoing legal aftermath, isn’t the only reason this issue is central. The fact is that the whole acquisition process, from development through production, has become completely unsuited to meet the challenge that now faces our military services, not only from the Soviet Union but also in the Third World.

Since World War II, we have enjoyed the luxury of being able to introduce major new systems frequently and rapidly enough to maintain a technological advantage over all possible adversaries. But as a basis for our whole defense strategy, that luxury is a has-been.

Current defense acquisition practices make major system starts far too costly to undertake with frequency. Successful program completions are also increasingly iffy. Clearly, the new secretary of defense must make radical reforms if the nation is to deal effectively with unpredictable threats.

Superficially, this message may seem to mimic the numerous commissions and blue-ribbon panels that have repeatedly studied weapons procurement. However, none of them--not even the heavily publicized and widely praised Packard commission--came fully to grips with the most important defects in the process.

The Pentagon uses a fairly standard approach to acquiring its major weapons systems. Although the specifics may vary slightly by service or weapon type, development programs are generally kicked off with detailed statements of requirements, which in turn generate voluminous responses from industry. (These proprietary company proposals are among the sensitive documents that some procurement officials allegedly released to rival companies.) Each actor in this transaction employs numerous highly skilled, highly paid experts, making program initiation unnecessarily expensive and time consuming.

There are also strong pressures and incentives to begin producing the new designs quickly--well before development is finished. Military testing of advanced weapons during development is usually quite thorough; most of the problems that plague weapons in the field are identified during the test phase. Unfortunately, premature production usually means that a large number of units have already been fielded before design flaws are identified and corrections devised. (The B-1B bomber is a case in point.)

The production phase of major systems is a rocky road for other reasons. In addition to inevitable technical problems, major acquisitions almost always encounter a continuous cascade of adjustments as Pentagon officials and key congressional committees react to changes in the threat to America’s security. Budgeted production rates fluctuate dramatically year by year. And final production rates are almost always lower than planned.

The key to increasing new program starts, increasing the number of competing concepts explored in each program and weeding out those that are unpromising is to streamline the early phases of acquisition. Detailed guidelines and specifications can be replaced with more general statements of goals and constraints. This change would promote design creativity and reduce both government and industry management costs by eliminating premature and onerous paper-work requirements and permitting the use of smaller teams for concept exploration and early design.

But even with this change, budget constraints mean that the number of new weapon “platforms” (ships, tanks and aircraft) cannot be expected to be large enough to embody each of the successive advances in technology needed to deal with the progressively more sophisticated threat. Instead, the Pentagon must invest more attention, dollars and time in acquiring new sub-systems that can improve a platform’s combat effectiveness--especially in the areas of electronics and advanced munitions. Unfortunately, there are strong bureaucratic forces that work against this solution and so far, senior Pentagon leaders have not been willing or able to overcome them.

In spite of a proven record of success, the practice of prototyping a weapons system and delaying full production until most testing is accomplished remains an exception to standard practice. This, too, should be changed. Well-executed prototyping detects operational problems early, makes it possible to accelerate the achievement of full system capability and improves the accuracy of cost estimates. The best recent example is the Air Force’s lightweight-fighter program, now more than a dozen years old, which spawned both the Air Force F-16 and the Navy F-18.

Finally, the nation needs substantial investment in new computer-based manufacturing equipment. Our defense contractors have outstanding space-age design capabilities. However, far too many of their plants lack modern production equipment with the built-in flexibility to efficiently accommodate both design changes and fluctuating demand.

The Packard commission sidestepped most of the deficiencies identified here. Although that presidential advisory group did endorse prototyping, it was silent on the importance of upgrading existing equipment and the danger of premature commitments to production. It offered no solution to the problem of high program start-up costs and paid scant attention to the subject of manufacturing efficiency and flexibility.

The nation’s weapons acquisition process needs fundamental redirection in strategy and procedures--not simply more regulations designed to assure fair dealing among government officials, contractors and consultants. The problems of military acquisitions go far beyond abuse of the bidding and source-selection process.

Let’s hope the nation’s next defense chief digests the lesson of the scandal. Let’s also hope he orders basic, far-reaching reforms, not just public-relations trimmings.