Acquisition Category 1 (ACAT 1) systems acquisition needs major surgery, said Michael Vane, deputy commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command and director of Army Capabilities Integration Center.
“That doesn’t mean acquisition is broken, a label that evokes a visceral response but is not necessarily accurate,” said Vane, who today retires from the Army after more than 35 years in uniform.
ACAT 1 programs are major defense acquisition programs estimated by the Defense Department chief acquisition officer to require more than $365 million in fiscal year 2000 constant dollars for research, development, test and evaluation or procurement of more than $2.1 billion.
The system and the process that exist is not necessarily a bad system or a bad process–it’s just too long, he said. Though when the process was originally devised and as its been adjusted, it has always been in an environment in which the Army knew what the adversary was going to do, and so it could take time to reach a level of overmatch and stay ahead.
“One of the things we’ve always gotten wrong” is predicting the future, Vane said. However, when pursuing multiple ACAT 1 programs and are able to pay for them, you are likely not to get the future entirely wrong.
But in today’s environment, it’s harder and harder to discern what an adversary is going to do. It also appears the Army will need fewer weapon systems because of their cost and pressures on the defense budget, and the defense industry will build an ACAT 1 system–either improving an existing system or a brand new system–in seven years or more.
“Yet the defense industry and the acquisition system that we have seems to say it will take seven years, and some argue it will take you 10 years, and those dates are all historically- based,” Vane said. “But each time you go into the system, and say how long will it take me with modern risk they come out with seven years.”
But there’s a price associated with those seven years or more even though they are fewer than the nearly 20 years some systems took during Cold War years.
“What happens inside seven years, one administration changes, possibly two,” Vane said. “When you go beyond two administrations, you change the political leadership inside the administration, inside the Defense Department, inside the Army, so you get different people with different opinions, making it very difficult to maintain the rudder.”
Additionally, examine what happens in the global environment in seven to 10 years. Global trends change, government leadership changes, states develop different relationships with the United States.
“Look at the Arab Spring right now–Egypt,Tunisia, Yemen–where does that take you in terms of knowing who your enemy is and knowing what the capabilities are that you will need,” he said. Would that have been considered seven years ago?
“Seven to 10 years to develop a piece of equipment, even though it’s a major end item is absurd,” Vane said. “It can’t survive this kind of environment where the pace of change, again, global trends, demands greater flexibility, greater versatility, greater adaptability, greater ability to change ourselves.”
Vane looked at the industry model, visiting various members of the automotive industry over the past year or so, going with folks from Army Tank-automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center.
Looking at the automotive industry, one thing Vane did was go to France, to learn from Corvette racing firm Pratt & Miller at Le Mans. They had a ZR1-based Corvette on the race track, and they were monitoring the car in real time, all the way from tire pressure to engine RPMs, fuel rates, whatever the reliability curves said about all the parts. Every one of the parts, all its specifications and cost were in a computer and shown on a big screen.
“They’ve got situational awareness of their product,” he said. That’s just an example. When the company left Le Mans, they knew exactly what they were going to do at the next Le Mans series race.
“What I was looking for was, how do they write their requirements, how do they gather input from the field, from their customers, users, sales. marketing, their own experts and then, how do they bring that together to get a cost estimate and a schedule estimate and a performance estimate on the front end and then how fast do they build and deliver,” he said. “In other words, how long does it take them to do development and design.”
In the race car category, they rebuild the car every year, he said. That’s one car, and perhaps not as complex as a combat vehicle.
The defense industry says it can’t do the same because combat vehicles are a lot more complex.
“Maybe,” Vane said. “There are a lot of moving parts on it, but in a car that’s going over 200 miles an hour, and they worry about force protection, for the human–different “Gs [forces] and shock blast. But still it’s the methodology in the system.”
After a number of visits to automakers, Vane said: “What ends up being the big difference in my opinion is how are people motivated inside that industry to achieve an outcome.”
Everybody involved with that race car at Pratt and Miller, and the other companies he visited, is focused on winning the race. Everyone from the fuel tank designer to the man putting air in tires, is focused on winning and they know what their contribution is. “You only gauge success on winning the race or learning from the last race enough to make you more competitive to help you win the next race.”
The Army has to be motivated by the outcome, not the process as it currently is, Vane said. All the necessary parts are required–how to get money, promotion, recognition, good evaluation, pass a Defense Acquisition Board Review or a test, but it’s not the outcome.
“The outcome is delivering something to a soldier,” Vane said. “The performance record of ACAT 1 systems in the Defense Department, in particular in the Army, pretty miserable. I don’t know the official statistics, but by our count it’s something like only one ACAT 1 system fielded in the last 12-15 years–Stryker. You could argue if that was really an ACAT 1, certainly wasn’t a new start ACAT 1. We picked it up from the Canadians and modified it.”
But its easy to rattle off a list of failures: Future Combat System, Crusader, RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon and NLOS Launch System, to name a few.
One of the main reasons for that dismal record Vane said is that “people in the system are not motivated toward the outcome and not rewarded toward the outcome.”
Cultural change is difficult, he said. Leaders stay only a few years, report recommendations are never fully implemented. For example, DoD is adding thousands to acquisition, not just in the Army, and they are going to be trained and educated to the same acquisition level standards that say they are certified on the process.
“That is a necessary step, but insufficient to change the culture,” Vane said. “People have to wake up in the morning and say I want to put something in the hand of the soldier. My success is going to be rated on whether or not I get something to that soldier.”
The question then becomes how does the Army link a tester or financial person or program manger’s promotion, pay, benefits, and evaluations to achieving success and hold them accountable.
For example, Vane said, how many program managers (PM) have ever gone on to serve in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics? (OSD ATL).
“Has anybody at ATL ever been a PM, that’s question one,” Vane said. “Question two is, someone that’s been a successful PM? Then question number three would be, someone that’s a successful PM of an ACAT 1 system. I think if you put those three filters on there I think you’ll find the answer to that is zero.”
The big idea from all this: “You’ve got got to get a success-oriented, outcome based culture change inside of acquisition,” Vane said. That must be linked to what trading performance to achieve cost and schedule to acquire something that’s affordable and better than what’s in place today. The service is doing that with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and starting that with Ground Combat Vehicle.
There’s a hard push on taking the difference between what process experts say and what the service thinks is needed to keep pace with change, the enemy, competitors, he said. The difference is between “Will Cost and Should Cost,” and “Will Schedule and Should Schedule.”
Then, managers must identify the impediments, major cost drivers and risk level or confidence level associated with those cost drivers between “will” and “should” and bring those to the attention of senior leadership in OSD and the Army and manage the program through that.
“That’s starting to get a little bit of traction,” Vane said.