[infowar.de] FCW 16.1.02: DOD Acquisition System 'Broken'

[Georg Schoefbaenker <schoefbaenker -! - aon - at>]

Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
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Federal Computer Week (FCW.com)
January 16, 2002

DOD Acquisition System 'Broken'

By Christopher J. Dorobek

Transition of the armed services will be virtually impossible without a=
 wholesale reform of the Defense Department's acquisition process, said Adm.=
 Dennis Blair, commander in chief of the Navy's U.S. Pacific Command.

"In the last 12 months, I have become even more convinced that our current=
 approach to transforming our armed forces must be changed, particularly the=
 way we acquire systems. If we don't change it, it will break us," Blair=
 said Jan. 15 at the West 2002 conference in San Diego.

"I believe that our acquisition system is fundamentally broken, especially=
 in the area of information technology," he said.

Blair said he made his comments acknowledging that the armed forces are=
 doing well, but he said that they have not done well enough and that there=
 have been costs in missed opportunities.

The current acquisition system does not move quickly enough, fails to put=
 engineers together with operators to address real-world problems or deal=
 with emerging threats and fails to address evolving requirements, the=
 admiral said.

The process is hamstrung by a bureaucracy that does not reward =97 or even=
 make allowances for =97 innovation or modifications, he said.

"The bigger and more standardized the program, the better from the=
 perspective of the program manager," he said.

Instead, Blair said that programs should be developed incrementally, testing=
 projects in real-world situations.

DOD must institutionalize the links between joint operations and service=
 acquisition centers, he said. Those can be improved dramatically by holding=
 more exercises that require the military services to work together.

The department has created a so-called Rapid Improvement Team that is=
 spearheading an effort to get IT projects into the hands of warfighters=
 more rapidly =97 even within 18 months. DOD officials last month approved=
 several pilot programs that will be used to test the concepts developed by =
RIT.


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