Best Practices: Capturing Design and Manufacturing Knowledge Early Improves Acquisition Outcomes

摘要

Historically, the Department of Defense (DOD) has taken much longer and spent much more than originally planned to develop and acquire its weapon systems, significantly reducing the department's buying power over the years. Clearly, it is critical to find better ways of doing business and, in particular, to make sure that weapon systems are delivered on time and cost-effectively. This is especially true given the vast sums DOD is spending and is expected to spend on weapons acquisition-$100 billion alone in 2002 and an anticipated $700 billion over the next 5 years. DOD has recognized the nature of this problem and has taken steps to address it, including advocating the use of best practices for product development from commercial companies. Leading commercial companies have achieved more predictable outcomes from their product development processes because they identify and control design and manufacturing risks early and manage them effectively. While DOD has made some progress in recent years, GAO's recent weapon system reviews show that persistent problems continue to hinder acquisition cost, schedule, and performance outcomes. For this reason, GAO has continued a body of work to identify the lessons learned by best commercial companies to see if they apply to weapon system acquisitions. This report addresses how DOD can manage its weapon system acquisition process to ensure important knowledge about a system's design, critical manufacturing processes, and reliability is captured and used to make informed and timely decisions before committing to substantial development and production investments. It identifies best practices to facilitate this decision making at two critical junctures-transition from system integration to system demonstration during product development and then transition into production. Ultimately, this should improve cost, schedule, and quality outcomes of DOD major weapon system acquisitions.