‘Throw A Frag Grenade’ Into Acquisition Or ‘Do No Harm:’ Navy Struggles With Innovation

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http://breakingdefense.com/2014/04/throw-a-frag-grenade-into-acquisition-or-do-no-harm-navy-struggles-with-innovation/



‘Throw A Frag Grenade’ Into Acquisition Or ‘Do No Harm:’ Navy Struggles With Innovation
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on April 10, 2014 at 2:01 PM

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 it, between the dueling imperatives of Moore’s Law and “first do no harm.”

“There’s 85 percent that probably needs to be done the way we’re doing it; 15 percent that needs to move with that speed,” said Vice Adm. William Hilarides, chief of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), after an audience member urged him to “throw a frag grenade” into the current procurement system. “We definitely need a system where innovation can play inside that.”

“First, do no harm,” agreed Vice Adm. David Dunaway, the chief of Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). The service needs to open up the system for faster and more affordable “upgrade and modernization,” he said, but there’s a place for the full-up “Big A” acquisition process to handle big things like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — the most expensive conventional weapons program ever — or the Ford-class aircraft carrier.

Such sanguine statements are startling when you consider that the Pentagon’s procurement chief has called the F-35 a case of “acquisition malpractice“; the Senate has slammed cost overruns on the Ford; the heir-apparent to the chair of the House Armed Services Committee is helming an initiative for a comprehensive overhaul of “Big A” acquisition; and the head of a Pentagon-ordered study said the only cure for the current system was to “put a match to it.”