The five major American defense contractors have averaged far higher cost growth on development contracts for Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAP) than other contractors while the opposite is true for early production contracts, according to a new study prepared by the Defense Department’s acquisition office that analyzes performance of major defense programs between FY ’94 and FY ‘11. Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] experienced 46 percent and 42 percent cost growth, respectively, on average for MDAP development contracts while…
