EFV Report

Just posted for your weekend reading: A new Government Accountability Office report on cost, schedule and performance challenges with the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. Specifically:

Findings:

* Reliability growth approach and other performance issues present significant challenges and risks

* Current nature of development, test, and procurement schedules add unnecessary risk to program

* Costs could increase due to concurrency, redesign effort, and final procurement quantity

Conclusions:

Program’s history of cost growth, schedule slips and performance failures and the current challenges (including changing threats) raise the question of whether the business case for the EFV program (in terms of cost, schedule, and performance) is still sound.

Recommendations:

* A reevaluation be performed to confirm the EFV remains a required asset and the preferred approach. If the EFV business case is confirmed,

* ensure that certain knowledge is gained prior to the start of OA-2 (Operational Assessment) and

* add another OA to verify progress along an acceptable reliability growth curve.

To ensure a more informed production decision and minimize investment risk,

* delay the production decision until the added OA and a design projected to provide the required reliability are completed, and

* reduce LRIP quantities to the minimum necessary and document the rationale for the quantity if it is in excess of 10 percent of the total planned buy.

Some of Inside the Navy's recent coverage of the EFV program:

USMC Ground Vehicle Strategy Now Due After Conway's Departure

Limited Objective Experiment 4 Will Use Surrogates For EFV And V-22

Flynn: Marines Will Keep Expeditionary Capability Regardless of EFV

Regression Testing To Precede Formal Release Of New EFV Software

EFV Program Admits Software Delays, But Says Overall Schedule OK

Marine Corps Receives New EFV Prototypes; Operational Testing Next Year