By Emelie Rutherford
A top Air Force official said he is not happy with the cost and speed of Northrop Grumman‘s [NOC] RQ4 Global Hawk unmanned-aerial-vehicle program.
“We’re not happy about the price learning curve that one would normally expect from the program, and the cost structure of the program,” Air Force acquisition executive David Van Buren said at the Pentagon last Friday. “I’m not happy with the pace of the program, the overall program, big program here, in both the government side and the contractor side. And it’s one that needs to do better in the future.”
A Global Hawk “should-cost” review is underway now, as directed by an acquisition decision memorandum from the Pentagon’s acquisition, technology and logistics office. The Air Force-led review is intended “to look at air vehicle cost, and to look at each and every one of these sensor packages,” he said. The review should be done in August or September.
In terms of his qualms with the pace of the production program, Van Buren said the testing and delivery of Block 30 aircraft and sensors, for example, have been “slower than expected.”
Negotiations with industry are not as speedy as he would like, he said, calling the “timeliness and the quality level of the proposals going on…(excruciating in terms of) how long that takes to get the proposals.”
Asked about which Global Hawk negotiations he was referencing, Van Buren said the service is in ongoing negotiations for air vehicle and sensors packages in different blocks.
“I don’t want to get into what the contractor team is proposing, but I’m saying it’s going in the wrong direction of what a prudent person responsible for buying something cost effectively would want to see,” he said.
For example, he said, a person would expect to have a lower price on the fifth low-rate-initial-production (LRIP) buy of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters than on the fourth LRIP. He implied costs were not going down in such a manner on progressive rounds of Global Hawk purchase negotiations.
“That should be carried forward to all programs,” Van Buren said, referring to increased savings on production buys. “As you go down the learning curve and as you become more mature in production and things get sorted out, you should have a reasonable expectation of how to lower cost, assuming you don’t have wild inflation or instability in the supply base or what have you. And that’s the expectation that we have in all our programs.”
Northrop Grumman defended itself in a statement, saying it informed the Air Force of overall cost reductions on Global Hawk’s Block 20, 30, and 40 “systems and the associated payloads, including the enhanced integrated sensor suite (EISS), advanced signals intelligence payload (ASIP) and the Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP) radar.”
“While there have been cost spikes within production lots due to the quantity procured within each lot, overall cost of the air vehicle and the sensors is trending down, as the company predicted and expected,” the company said. “Additional cost reductions have been identified by the company and will be evaluated for suitability.”
Northrop Grumman said it is committed to speedily submit proposals in response to Air Force solicitations and streamline the contracting process to expedite Global Hawk deliveries to theater.
The company also said it implemented multiple initiatives to decrease repair turnaround time–a concern Van Buren cited last Friday.