Similar Posts
Belated B-Day Greetings
Happy 232nd Birthday Navy! Belated B-day greetings – been on the road these past few days and am getting ready to leave again…almost like being on active duty again
Touch Screens – The Next Step
This is just way too cool — imagine what a ship’s TAO or E-2C/D CICO could do with something like this: (sorry — plugin was misbehavin’ — see the video here) More on touch screens here (and yes, DARPA has a contract with them…)
How To Make a VAW Maintenance Dept Head Sweat…
Crane-off an E-2. Now for the small-boys, it’s not as big a deal as they are more practiced at it given t he numbers in their squadrons, but also just because, well, they’re smaller, more compact and don’t have this big ol’ airframe feature called a dome in the middle to deal with that calls…
Outrage
Back online after going one-on-one with a balky router — but that’s not the source of tonight’s outrage… I could go on about former CIA chiefs who, not satisfied with having thoroughly messed up one institution, now presume to give us the benefit of their wisdom by writing of the passage of the big deck…
КраÑÐ½Ð°Ñ Ð·Ð²ÐµÐ·Ð´Ð° вторник (Red Star Tuesday): Blackjacks in Venezuela
(courtesy longtime reader SJBill) Tu 160 Deployment To Venezuela View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: russia tu-160) Graphic of TU-160 Â Also this note via RIA Novosti concerning the heavy cruiser “Peter the Great” and his accompanying ships:”A Russian naval task force departed Monday on a tour of duty in the Atlantic Ocean,…
5 Comments
Comments are closed.
All kidding aside, what is the decision-making process like for something which is feasible, needed ASAP, and is cost-effecitve? Would the path to a final decision still be so convoluted?
Veritas et Fidelis Semper
I think the first thing would be smelling salts for the procurement officers! I worked in the DOD world many years it’s extremely rare to find all of those in the same package. If it’s needed ASAP it normally costs more, if its feasible we still have to investigate the non-feasible alternatives (sole-source justification), and if it’s cost effective we have to investigate for some months or years to make sure it’s really what they say so that means you can’t get it ASAP. By the time it’s justified, researched and approved it’s no long feasible as there has been a work around found or a new and better technology available.
Thank you for taking the time to respond, sir. Basically, it appears that absolutely no one benefits except, of course, the………..well, I don’t really know what to call them………..paper-pushers who invent these mazes to make something which should be perfwectly clear and easy exceedingly complex!
Well, in the meantime, we “shortest path from A to B” folks must keep plugging away and not become discouraged. Either that or come into a great deal of money so that we may overhaul this process…….it could be done, and that’s not just wishful thinking.
Veritas et Fidelis Semper
The system is the system. Many different SecDef’s have tried many different methods of acquisition reform but none has had the kind of impact that would lead to a “sensible” process by your expectations. And don’t forget Congress is involved too, they have to pass TWO bills, one to authorize the budget for purchases and one to FUND that same authorization. Those bills can be seriously different. So even IF there was a fast-track process (which there sorta is but its still slow by civilian standards) the money has to be there from Congress to buy the items or has to be taken (and moved..which requires more paper) from other areas. The areas that lose the $$ can put up a fight within the system or via their CongressCritters. Case in point was body armor and up-armored HUMVEEs for the troops in Iraq, that process kicked off close to 2 yrs ago, Congress gave DoD the money pretty fast and the needs are just now getting filled. You can’t turn the Titanic on a dime.