WASHINGTON: Some 45 football fields and gear worth $5 billion. That’s how much excess inventory and storage room the Defense Logistics Agency has sold or destroyed since the height of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s not finished. DLA’s first sale of surplus equipment to local businesses in Afghanistan is scheduled for next… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: “Dear Congress: Please stop helping us. Sincerely, the Pentagon.” That’s a form letter the Defense Department might do well to buy in bulk. It’s not what every administration official thinks every time a legislator comes up with an unsolicited bright idea, but when it comes to the thorny thicket of the military acquisition system, Congress’s… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: High-ranking officials and blue-ribbon commissions have spent decades trying to reform how the Defense Department develops new technologies, buys them, sustains them, and controls their export abroad. Almost everyone has failed. Why? Ben Fitzgerald says they’re thinking too small. “Hey guys, this is actually a strategic issue. It’s not just an acquisition issue or… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: When Americans were threatened during the civil war in South Sudan, Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys flew a Marine response force from Spain to Djibouti in a non-stop flight of 3,200 nautical miles – the distance from Alaska to Florida. That’s an extraordinary feat for an aircraft that can take off and land vertically like a helicopter. But… Keep reading →

Here’s the final piece of Bill Greenwalt’s blueprint for a new defense acquisition system. As Bill points out in this, the third piece: “now comes the hard part.” Congress and the Pentagon have proven clumsily adept at tinkering with the acquisition system over the last 20 years. But no matter how well intentioned, weapons just… Keep reading →

[UPDATED with Congressional staffer comment] WASHINGTON: The Pentagon’s coy about the next iteration of its Better Buying Power initiative, but it’s clear that “BBP 3.0” is coming. We even have some hints of what will be in it: more encouragement for rapid prototyping and other forms of innovative acquisition to keep America’s technological edge, a… Keep reading →

Bill Greenwalt knows acquisition like few people on earth. For more than a decade he wrote acquisition laws — and fought off some — while a staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Then he went to the Pentagon, where he oversaw industrial base issues, which often included acquisition policies. Bill, now a wise man… Keep reading →

NATIONAL HARBOR: It’s easy to call for innovation. It’s hard to do. At this week’s Sea-Air-Space conference here, just 10 miles down the Potomac from the Pentagon, admirals and junior officers alike wrestled with the right balance between speed and safety, between it taking hours to 3-D print a new design and many months to certify… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The Air Force has substantially driven down its acquisition costs for the second year in a row, doubling its success in cutting cost estimates from $7 billion last year to $13.4 billion this year. But not all is rosy in acquisition land. Schedule problems continue to mount, getting a “poor” rating from the service,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: For “at least 50 years of frustration,” the Vice-Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said this morning, people have kept trying to fix the Pentagon’s procurement problems, but the problems keep on getting worse. It’s time to stop layering one band-aid atop another and look at the system as a (dysfunctional) whole, said… Keep reading →