Monitoring the Progress of Shipbuilding Programmes: How Can the Defence Procurement Agency More Accurately Monitor Progress

摘要

The Defence Procurement Agency (DPA), part of the UK The Ministry of Defence (MOD), provides services and equipment for the national security of the United Kingdom (UK). This task requires efficient capital management. One of the keys to efficient capital expenditure is good program management. Cost and schedule control and estimating are central competencies of program management and are the principal focus of this report. Continually updated knowledge of project status is important for both operational planning and financial management. A good control system also can aid program improvement by identifying problem areas before they greatly affect production. Accurate estimating of changing program needs allows an organization to make the best use of limited funding. The importance of estimating and control has been recognized by the DPA in that two of the five key targets monitored are related to cost and schedule performance. The DPA measures its annual performance against five key targets. Key Target 2 relates to program slippage (i.e., the delay between the promised in-service date and the actual or projected in- service date). The MOD indicates average program slippage results in product delivery approximately one year later than the date originally anticipated at Main Gate. For military shipbuilding, slippage is often recognized very late in the program, making it more difficult to overcome. These issues led the DPA to ask the RAND Corporation to do the following: (1) assess how shipbuilders track program progress and how they identify a set of metrics that are used to measure progress, (2) consider how the DPA should monitor programs and recommend the types of information that should be gathered from shipbuilders to help the agency independently assess shipbuilding progress, and (3) identify why ships are delivered late and why commercial shipbuilders have better schedule performance. Shipbuilders in the UK, United States, and European Union were surveyed.7.