The Government Accountability Office has noticed the Defense Department's increased emphasis on accelerating its notoriously slow acquisition system, but the watchdog agency is concerned weapon system reliability might be sacrificed at the expense of speed.
"Recent DOD actions have highlighted the importance of emphasizing reliability with contractors," GAO wrote in a Jan. 14 report. "In light of the current focus on accelerating the acquisition process, balancing the desire for speed with reliability considerations is critical."
GAO notes the department recently began employing the Middle Tier Acquisition pathway for prototype programs that will be allowed to sidestep the traditional procurement process if they can be completely fielded within five years.
"This emphasis may encourage decision makers to prioritize activities that promise to reduce schedule," GAO wrote. "We found that for the programs we reviewed, however, such an approach can come at the expense of other activities, such as implementing effective reliability practices."
GAO reviewed seven programs: the V-22 Osprey, the F-22 Raptor, the canceled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle and the VH-92A Presidential Helicopter Replacement program.
Based on a two-year study, GAO found that all the programs did not consistently adhere to four key reliability practices used in the private sector and thus ran into problems: Leveraging reliability engineers early and often, establishing realistic reliability requirements, emphasizing reliability with their suppliers and employing reliability engineering activities to improve a system's design throughout development.
GAO recommends that senior leaders from military services all emphasize those best practices in their acquisition systems.
"Without senior leadership emphasis on a broader range of key reliability practices, DOD runs the risk of delivering less reliable systems than promised to the warfighter and spending more than anticipated on rework and maintenance of major weapon systems," GAO said. "This risk is exacerbated in an environment where decision makers are striving to deliver systems in an accelerated manner."
The Pentagon, meanwhile, concurred with GAO's findings and the services each said they will update their acquisition policies to reflect auditors' recommendations.