The Air Force ‘Internet of Things’ program gets reorganized
According to a memo sent from Roper to the Air Force’s acquisition workforce Tuesday, the chief architect will remain responsible for codifying ABMS [Advanced Battle […]
Month: November 2020
Acquisition headlines
GAO: Aircraft Mission Capable Rates Generally Did Not Meet Goals and Cost of Sustaining Selected Weapon Systems Varied Widely. “We found that of the 46 […]
Why cost accounting does not guarantee efficiency
But accurate accounts will not guarantee efficiency. Even if — as is unlikely to be the case [Sourwine 1993; 1994]– the service supplier’s financial and […]
How should government own the technical baseline?
In 1989, Kodak contracted with IBM to outsource its IT operations, creating the IT outsourcing industry. Kodak’s IT outsourcing proved disastrous. With a 10-year, $250 […]
Origins of weapon systems stovepiping
Practitioners of systems analysis naturally did not aspire to such comprehensiveness, but, as will be demonstrated, the technique of systems analysis does imply it. Since […]
A meta analysis of industrial mobilization
Francis: You’re inference at the end of this piece, “It’s time to make industrial mobilization cool again,” infers that there was a time when it […]
The role of blockchain in military cybersecurity
On a great new podcast, Commercial Innovation for Defense, Mark Goode asks blockchain entrepreneur Michael Lewellen about the military’s work on bringing together a common […]
Tech competition in China and the United States with Michael Brown
In this special crossover episode with ChinaTalk podcast host Jordan Schneider, we interview director of the Defense Innovation Unit Michael Brown. We touch on a […]
Acquisition headlines
DoD has promising tech. Now it’s time to scale it up, officials say. “Michèle Flournoy, widely believed to be President-elect Joe Biden’s top pick to […]
The days when 3-5 years for fighter aircraft development was too long
In the judgment of the committee, the services unnecessarily complicated those relationships with “meticulous supervision” exercised through restrictive procedures that badly needed simplifying. In addition […]
Make industrial mobilization cool again — or is it for the first time?
The tradition of the Department of Defense is to define a weapon system end item, then fund that end item and the supplier base through […]
How the SDA’s space architecture comes together
In order to do missile tracking for the next generation missile threats — hypersonic glide vehicles, hypersonic cruise missiles — we need to do two […]
Air Force top priorities reflect a move away from stovepiped weapons
Back in June 2020, Air Force chief Charles Brown said his top priority was Joint All-Domain Command and Control. In November, Brown updated that slightly. […]
Roper on opportunity- vs. requirements-based contracting
Here’s Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper making a very nice distinction between a “requirements” and an “opportunity” approach to defense programs. At the Strategic […]
Defense budgets under a Biden administration
Republicans have historically supported a large defense budget, and most Democrats showed earlier this year that they don’t support deep cuts either when the party’s […]