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National Defense May 2010 Sandra I. Erwin |
Without Radical Change, Many More Defense Programs Will End Up Like JSF The breathless hype over the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's soaring costs and schedule slips clouds a much bigger acquisition predicament for the Pentagon: How to stop more programs from ending up like JSF. |
National Defense September 2011 Sandra I. Erwin |
As Pressure Grows to Cut Spending, the True Cost of Weapons Is Anyone's Guess A decade of soaring Pentagon spending is coming to an end, and it is leaving behind considerable fiscal wreckage. |
National Defense May 2015 Sandra I. Erwin |
Procurement Issues That Congress Won't Fix The new foreign policy mantra in Washington is that the world is on fire. The nation's weapons procurement machine, meanwhile, keeps partying like it's 1999. |
National Defense March 2014 Sandra I. Erwin |
In '15 Budget, Red Flags for Contractors If defense industry CEOs can draw any conclusion from the Pentagon's 2015 budget proposal it is that, except for the too-big-to-fail joint strike fighter, most of the military's modernization plan is on shaky ground. |
National Defense March 2009 Sandra I. Erwin |
Message to Weapons Buyers: Make it Cheaper and Faster Robert Gates concluded that the only way to deploy hardware quickly enough to war zones was to circumvent the traditional buyers and create ad-hoc "rapid procurement" teams. |
National Defense January 2010 Sandra I. Erwin |
Acquisition Reform Act: The Backlash Has Begun It's only been seven months since President Obama signed the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009. Predictably, a chorus of disapproval already is being heard. |
National Defense March 2014 Sandra I. Erwin |
Acquisition Business Reaches Inflection Point Acquisition flops over the past decade have put the fear of God into Pentagon leaders who now face the added pressure of having to ensure programs perform in a zero-tolerance environment, and with budget cuts to boot. |
National Defense July 2014 Sandra I. Erwin |
Hope and Despair in Government Procurement It's crunch time for acquisition reformers as they face a July deadline to submit recommendations to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. |
National Defense May 2009 Sandra I. Erwin |
Gates: Industry Unharmed By Program Cancellations The Pentagon needs to stop buying "exquisite" technology that does not meet real military needs in favor of larger quantities of critical items. |
National Defense November 2009 Sandra I. Erwin |
To Cut Waste in Defense, Stop Piling on Reforms If the Pentagon is serious about change across all programs, it can't afford another "acquisition reform charade," and must address the root cause of current problems. |
National Defense July 2011 Sandra I. Erwin |
Procurement Blues: After a Decade Of Largesse, Not Much to Show for It After a decade of lavish spending, the Pentagon is now left with an aging fleet of weapon systems, an overstrained force, out-of-control personnel and healthcare costs, and no idea of how to prepare for tomorrow's wars. |
National Defense March 2012 Sandra I. Erwin |
The Coming Decade: A Slowdown In Spending, but No 'Procurement Holiday' Even under the worst-case scenario, defense budgets in the coming decade will be larger than they were in the last year of the Bush administration. |
National Defense January 2010 Sandra I. Erwin |
Defense, Industry Upheaval Defined By 10 Key Moments Here's a look back at 10 key moments that defined the decade for the military and the defense industry. |
BusinessWeek May 15, 2006 Eamon Javers |
Stealth Spending At The Pentagon How the Air Force is keeping the costs of expensive new fighter jets under the radar. |
IEEE Spectrum November 2008 Robert N. Charette |
What's Wrong with Weapons Acquisitions? Escalating complexity, a shortage of trained workers, and crass politicization mean that most programs to develop new military systems fail to meet expectations. |
National Defense June 2007 Sandra I. Erwin |
More Services, Less Hardware Define Current Military Buildup In the midst of the largest military expansion since the Reagan administration, industry analysts warn that the gravy days cannot last much longer. |
National Defense April 2007 Sandra I. Erwin |
Pentagon Begins Broad Review Of Acquisition Workforce Skills The Pentagon has launched an extensive evaluation of military acquisition and contracting personnel in order to gauge their skills and competence. |
National Defense November 2013 Sandra I. Erwin |
Companies See Bright Spots in Bleak Market There are still companies that have the stomach to invest in defense. Some actually view these tough times as an opportunity to win new business. |
National Defense September 2006 Sandra I. Erwin |
Reform Agenda Targets Acquisition Workforce The Pentagon's cadre of "professional shoppers" could see a wave of reforms in the coming years, as the Defense Department remains under unrelenting pressure to fix its buying practices. |
National Defense April 2010 Sandra I. Erwin |
How Much Does the Pentagon Pay for a Gallon of Gas? Two Defense Science Board studies have criticized the Pentagon for not having reliable methods of measuring what is known as the "fully burdened" cost of fuel (FBCF). |
National Defense May 2012 Sandra I. Erwin |
Industry Recalibrating Strategies For a Declining Defense Market The defense market is shaping up to become a Darwinian world where winning contracts will be a matter of life or death for many companies. |
National Defense October 2009 Sandra i. Erwin |
New Business Model Needed To Replace the Status Quo In the weapons-acquisition world, the "normal" ways of doing business are frowned upon around the E-ring these days. |
National Defense November 2009 Sandra I. Erwin |
Industrial Policy Debate: Should The Pentagon Pick Winners and Losers? Industry executives and trade associations have called for the Defense Department to take preemptive action to protect key sectors that are considered of strategic importance to national security. |
National Defense March 2015 Sandra Erwin |
Defense Department Takes Steps to Energize Cutting-Edge Research The Defense Department is reorganizing its technology shop as it tries to light a fire under its science programs. |
National Defense April 2015 Sandra I. Erwin |
Defense Technology At a Crossroads: Can the Pentagon Regain Its Innovation Mojo? The Defense Department may never become the technological juggernaut it once was, but with the groundbreaking innovation happening in the private sector, the challenge for the Pentagon is to tap emerging technology. |
National Defense December 2015 Sandra I. Erwin |
Mighty Pentagon Can't Deny Market Forces Market forces are such that the Defense Department could be headed toward a future of greater dependence on fewer and increasingly more powerful monopolies. |
National Defense June 2012 Sandra I. Erwin |
For Defense Industry, Lure of Shiny Objects Rapidly Fading The erstwhile dependable moneymakers in the defense industry no longer look like safe bets. Big-ticket weapon systems are being delayed, terminated, investigated or mired in endless reviews. |
National Defense February 2013 Sandra I. Erwin |
Less Money, But Still Business As Usual As the dust begins to settle to reveal a leaner defense budget, Pentagon contractors are strategizing for the new business environment. They also will be parsing the latest batch of Pentagon policies designed to turn around failing weapon acquisition programs. |
National Defense August 2010 Sandra I. Erwin |
Five Key Questions About the Defense Budget Here are some of the key questions that policymakers should bear in mind when it comes to the defense budget. |
National Defense November 2010 Sandra I. Erwin |
'Cutting-Edge' Weapons No Longer the Holy Grail Because of the war experience and the fiscal outlook, experts predict, the Defense Department will for some time remain conflicted about how it should spend its research dollars. |
National Defense January 2008 Sandra I. Erwin |
Bigger Budgets Disguise Larger Fiscal Dilemmas Nowhere is the financial outlook for the Defense Department more uncertain than in the procurement budget. |
National Defense February 2016 Sandra I. Erwin |
CEOs Not Yet Ready to Take a Gamble Defense executives don't have clear answers as they weigh investment choices in an uncertain market. |
National Defense January 2011 Sandra I. Erwin |
You Want Government to Spend More Wisely? Give It Less Money The government's biggest spenders -- the Pentagon and defense agencies -- are slowly coming to grips with the realization that lean times are indeed coming. |
National Defense September 2012 Sandra I. Erwin |
Next Pentagon Procurement 'Bow Wave' Will Be a Tsunami With the Defense Department now facing a precipitous drop in new equipment purchases over the next two years, the green-eyeshade crowd already is predicting a huge bow wave for 2018 and beyond, which could be the biggest one yet. |
National Defense April 2013 Sandra I. Erwin |
Pentagon, Contractors Clash Over Profits The pressure is on at the Pentagon to bring down the cost of military hardware. The dictum from acquisitions chief Frank Kendall is that "unaffordable" programs will be axed. |
National Defense June 2005 Sandra Erwin |
Procurement Probes Framed By Bleak Financial Forecast A string of procurement debacles at the Defense Department has stirred, yet again, calls for drastic reforms in military acquisition rules and policies. |
National Defense June 2009 Sandra I. Erwin |
Defense Industry: What Does Change Really Mean? The defense industry is unsure how they will be affected by revamped procurement practices promised by the Pentagon. |
National Defense September 2007 Sandra I. Erwin |
Why the Mightiest Military Can't Get Enough Trucks The political circus that has surrounded the procurement of mine-resistant armored vehicles for troops in Iraq comes as no surprise. |
National Defense July 2012 Sandra I. Erwin |
Defense Industry Targets $150B Weapons Maintenance Market Operations and support, or operations and sustainment, is military-speak for the unglamorous work of maintaining, refurbishing and overhauling Pentagon hardware, some of which is decades old. |
National Defense November 2009 Sandra I. Erwin |
Among Pentagon Buyers, Much Angst About IT The Pentagon procurement system treats information technology as if it were a weapon system, and may take a decade to acquire. By the time the technology is fielded, it is five generations too old. |
National Defense April 2009 Lawrence P. Farrell Jr. |
No Way to Escape Tighter Budgets, Acquisition Reform Two major developments are stirring many questions and concerns about what the current mood means for the industry. |
National Defense September 2015 Sandra I. Erwin |
Management Shakeup Looms at Defense When a new secretary of defense takes the helm at the Pentagon at the outset of the next administration, he or she will have to deal with a potentially chaotic staff reorganization that Congress signed into law. |
National Defense May 2008 Sandra I. Erwin |
Weapons Budget: The More You Spend, The Less You Buy A hyperinflation tsunami now threatens to sink the Defense Department's purchasing power so dramatically that a weapons budget that currently funds 95 programs will pay for just a handful of big-ticket programs |
National Defense December 2014 Sandra Erwin |
Pentagon Mulls Strategy for Next Arms Race The idea that the United States might see its overwhelming dominance in weapons technology erode is hard to comprehend, however, given the enormous spending gap between the Pentagon and everyone else. |
National Defense February 2013 Dale Church |
The Name of the Acquisition Game is Empowerment and Accountability Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Frank Kendall's "better buying power" initiatives deserve applause, but it is also important to examine the root cause of many of the problems in the defense acquisition system. |
National Defense August 2010 Sandra I. Erwin |
Can the Pentagon Build 'Affordable' Weapons Systems? The average U.S. consumer can expect to buy a better computer or smart phone every year, for less than what he paid before. The Pentagon, alas, only gets raw deals. |
National Defense February 2008 Sandra I. Erwin |
Preventive Care Prescribed for Pentagon Big-Ticket Programs Acquisition officials at the Pentagon must decide which programs get to live and which ones get put out of their misery. |
National Defense May 2014 Sandra I. Erwin |
Should the Pentagon Rescue Ailing Suppliers? It is an inevitable consequence of plunging budget cycles that suppliers go out of business, and the Pentagon typically has favored a laissez-faire industrial policy even though the defense sector is far from a free market. |
National Defense March 2005 Lawrence P. Farrell Jr. |
The Budget Realities We Must Face As Congress deliberates at length on the fine points of the Bush administration's fiscal year 2006 budget request for the Defense Department, it may be an appropriate time to take a broader look at the potential implications of the Pentagon's spending plan. |
National Defense August 2005 Sandra I. Erwin |
Looming Budget Cutbacks Underpin Defense Strategy How long the fighting in Iraq will last is anyone's guess. It seems quite certain, however, that mounting war costs will be wreaking financial havoc on many of the military's prized weapon systems. Are decision makers at the Pentagon guilty of shortsightedness? |