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Editorial: Build before you buy

Any initiative launched in an administration’s last year faces an uphill battle for survival, and the prognosis is even worse when it comes from a team suffering record-low approval ratings. So it’s no surprise that one of the Bush Pentagon’s biggest acquisition initiatives would be met with skepticism.

On Sept. 19, Defense Department acquisition chief John Young directed the military services and defense agencies to change how they acquire weapons. Instead of picking new weapons based on PowerPoint presentations and promises, prototypes from two or more competitors would duke it out until a winner is chosen. It’s the latest effort to control risk and uncertainty, leading factors in rising program costs and slipping delivery schedules.

The initiative would reinvigorate competition, provide more rewarding work for more engineers and ensure that risks are better identified by the time systems enter the critical system development and demonstration phase, which locks designs for production.

Critics agree the effort will yield benefits but counter that early program costs will increase substantially, costs that aren’t in the current budget plan.

But that doesn’t mean the initiative should be sidelined. To the contrary, when you have a highly consolidated industrial base dominated by a handful of titans, anything that advances competition and innovation must be embraced.

The promise is that the investment made in the first phase of the program will be logged virtually immediately in SDD, the second phase, where the bulk of development costs are incurred. Such competition has worked on individual programs, such as the Joint Strike Fighter, but hasn’t been applied wholesale.

With defense spending at all-time highs, you could argue it’s a question of priorities.

Another benefit is increased experimentation, critically important when it’s so hard to determine the systems needed for the future. The Navy is on the right track by acquiring two different types of Littoral Combat Ship for fleet testing before picking which of the two will be built in large quantities. The Army and Marine Corps used a similar approach to pick suppliers for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.

Competition is critical, especially for large programs where the stakes are high. You wouldn’t buy a car without test-driving it, so why should the Pentagon buy multibillion-dollar programs on the basis of brochures and promises?

Increased engineering work — including building more prototypes — also makes defense and aerospace more attractive fields at a time when government and industry agree that top talent is scarce.

Young must work with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Deputy Secretary Gordon England to convince lawmakers and industry with empirical evidence that the initiative will help save money. Without their support, the idea, much less the authority to move money, is doomed.

Similarly, Young and his bosses must get the military services in line as well. Record numbers of programs are overbudget and behind schedule, largely because development risks have either been underestimated or the government requirements continue to shift. Any move that helps control those costs and enhance competition and innovation deserves fair consideration and open debate.