INDUSTRY INSIGHT
progress—when senior leaders’ determi- nation overcame the natural tendencies of our political process and did mean- ingful good. Tose circumstances are exactly the ones in place today. Tere is an opportunity to make real change with Chairmen Mac Tornberry, R-TX, and John McCain, R-AZ, leading the charge in the House and Senate, respectively; with Secretary of Defense Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Deputy Secretary Robert Work, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisi- tion, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall; and three capable and expe- rienced service acquisition executives leading their respective portfolios.
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-TX, poses a question to Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, Navy ADM James A. “Sandy” Winnefeld Jr., vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Michael J. McCord, the DOD’s comptroller, as they testify on the FY15 budget request for overseas contingency operations before the House Armed Services Committee July 16, 2014. There is reason to be hopeful that meaningful acquisition reform will take place, led by Thornberry in the House and Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, in the Senate. (DOD photo by U.S. Navy PO1 Daniel Hinton)
Revamping acquisition in this environ- ment will
result from senior leaders’
commitment to three principles: giving individuals in the acquisition process the authority they need to get the job done and holding them accountable for outcomes; stripping out the embedded overhead requirements of the acquisi- tion process until we have balanced those requirements with the resources available
Paul Wolfowitz to create the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell and the joint urgent operational needs process, demonstrating that evident operational needs can shake up the system. In 2007, then-Defense Secretary Dr. Robert Gates demanded Mine Resistant Armor Protected vehicles and got them. He also created operational integration groups that spawned the joint emergent operational needs process, demonstrating the power of a determined senior leader.
Te risk we face today is that this kind of systemic disruption will end, allow- ing the boundary conditions to push us entirely back to our earlier status quo. While some suggest replacing our long- term planning and acquisition process with one of the rapid processes devel- oped during the last decade, such a
142 Army AL&T Magazine April–June 2015
proposal fails to consider why we have our current burdensome process in the first place. To quote GEN Montgomery Meigs, “Te legislation on this subject is already complicated and the additional guards intended by this bill will still more embarrass officers and people in the transaction of the public business. Every additional obstacle adds to the delay and to the cost of procuring military supplies. Te department needs tools to work with. Regulations, laws, customs, prescriptions as to its manner of doing business already exist in abundance.” I should be clear: this GEN Montgomery Meigs was not the one who led JIEDDO, but his fore- bear, who served as the Quartermaster General of the Army—speaking in 1864.
Understandably, many call the problem intractable. But we have seen periods of
The media and outside groups amplify every significant program misfire, creating an imperative for broad corrective action whether the specific misfire was an isolated incident or indicative of a trend.
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