We’re sure it’s merely coincidence, but on his last day of active duty with the USAF, Lt. General Dave Deptula spoke his mind about the need for fundamental changes to the DOD’s acquisition processes.  This article from the Online Defense and Acquisition Journal blog (“DoD Buzz”) reports on General Deptula’s last official press conference as an Air Force officer, in which he talked about his “personal views” on the need to get new weapon systems developed, tested, and fielded faster.  According to the article—

During a recent meeting with his staff during a meeting to discuss Remotely Piloted Vehicle capabilities, Deptula asked them when a program might make it to Initial Operational Capability if they started work on right away, they told him it would take until 2020 ….

What’s the problem?  According to the General Deptula—

The current Air Force acquisition system was born of the industrial age of warfare, not the current age. Instead of relying on that system, Deptula pointed to the Liberty program and the Big Safari office as examples the service ‘should adopt as the norm rather than the exception.’ Big Safari is an independent office that has helped develop Air Force RPVs since the early 1960s.

The DoD Buzz article reports that General Deptula was even more pointed in his criticism of DOD acquisition processes.

Deptula pointed to one of the most complex and disliked parts of the acquisition process — the Joint Capabilities Integration Development System (JCIDS) — and gently ridiculed it, noting that ‘Al Qaeda doesn’t have a JCIDS process.’

What is JCIDS?  According to the DOD, the JCIDS process—

… was created to support the statutory responsibility of the JROC to validate joint warfighting requirements. JCIDS is also a key supporting process for DOD acquisition and Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) processes. The primary objective of the JCIDS process is to ensure the capabilities required by the joint warfighter are identified with their associated operational performance criteria in order to successfully execute the missions assigned. This is done through an open process that provides the JROC the information they need to make decisions on required capabilities. The JCIDS process supports the acquisition process by identifying and assessing capability needs and associated performance criteria to be used as a basis for acquiring the right capabilities, including the right systems. These capability needs then serve as the basis for the development and production of systems to fill those needs. Additionally, it provides the PPBE process with affordability advice by assessing the development and production lifecycle cost.

Did you get all that?  If not, here’s a link to the office JCIDS Manual.  And here’s a link to a Wikipedia article that uses more understandable terminology. 

General Deptula is not the first military leader to call for reform to an overly complex and lengthy process.  In May 2010, National Defense magazine carried an article entitled, “Without Radical Change, Many More Defense Programs Will End Up Like JSF,” written by Sandra Erwin.  Ms. Erwin explored “how to stop more programs from ending up like JSF,” with its “soaring costs and schedule slips.” 

We’ve written about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program before, notably here and here.  But Ms. Erwin was not writing about the F-35; she was writing about the “fatal flaw” in the Defense acquisition system that needs to be fixed.  As she wrote—

The Defense Department and Congress this past year unleashed an avalanche of new reforms … But all these attempts at overhauling a broken system continue to conveniently ignore a fatal flaw in the weapons acquisition process: It is hopelessly slow and unresponsive to the military’s rapidly changing needs.

Because it takes years or even decades to bring a weapon system to fruition, it gets redesigned so much that invariably it results in sticker shock.  Every change, no matter how small, runs up a huge tab.  When a program spans 10 to 12 years, and hundreds of modifications are made … it is no surprise that costs spin out of control.

It is no surprise we agree with Ms. Erwin’s thoughts, and have written as much (for example, this article exploring why DOD’s Missile Defense Agency can’t manage its programs.)  But the problem isn’t necessary change control; the problem is the process that embeds a nearly unmanageable volume of changes into its very fabric.  The problem is a DOD JCIDS process that “deliberately emphasizes analysis and risk avoidance at the expense of speed”—to quote Colonel Timothy Chyma (as Ms. Erwin did).  Ms. Erwin also quotes an anonymous “senior Air Force official” as saying, “We’ll be dealing with the same issues as long as we have the same JCIDS process.”

We are in the midst of seeing enormous amounts of energy poured into addressing “efficiency” and “affordability” initiatives by the Pentagon and its contractor industrial base.  (See one of our many articles on that topic here.)  We urge the Pentagon to take a long, hard look at its JCIDS process—because if that process is significantly reformed, then it will increase both Pentagon decision-making efficiency and weapon system affordability. 

Two birds with one stone.  We like that kind of approach.