WASHINGTON — Empowering the services to buy weapons at a quicker clip is central to the Pentagon’s acquisition shake up, but speed is not the end-all-be-all, according to the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer.
“We’re emphasizing speed, but we’re not mandating speed,” Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey told reporters on a call this morning. “We’re continually going to be dependent on the judgment of program leaders who are executing these programs to understand where does the need for speed balance with the risk that we would undertake [for the] cost and or performance of the system.”
On Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took center stage to discuss plans to revamp of the acquisition system. Among the points he emphasized were the recent death of Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) process, prioritizing the purchase of commercial solutions, language designed to prevent vendor lock and a shift from “Program Executive Offices” to Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAE) under which a single official is accountable for interrelated programs.
Throughout the speech, Hegseth emphasized speed, echoing a memo reported earlier in the week by Breaking Defense which read that “Speed to capability delivery is now our organizing principle: the decisive factor in maintaining deterrence and warfighting advantage.”
Duffey’s comments today appeared to signal to industry that while speed matters, it’s not going to always come at the cost of capability. He also provided more depth on some of the challenges the department may face as it works to balance buying things quicker against cost and due diligence.
Those new service PAEs, he explained, will be tasked with carrying out the balancing act that also includes moving money around to different priorities and examining trade requirements.
“There’s certainly no question about the emphasis on speed, but recognizing that there’s a need for judgment and flexibility in that triangle of cost schedule performance,” he told reporters. “One thing we’re doing around here nowadays is we’re now saying ‘schedule, performance, cost’ instead of ‘cost, schedule, performance,’ just as a way of emphasizing the fact that speed is priority amongst us.”
In a 39-page acquisition strategy document released today, the department also calls for replacing “redundant and excessive” studies like the Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) — a previously required step designed to compare operational effectiveness, suitability, and the cost of alternative options. Lawmakers often use those analyses to help make oversight and investment decisions.
When asked about scrapping AoAs, Duffey said there could certainly be “exceptional circumstances” with large-scale development programs that will require additional studies like an AoA.
“We may need to do a study of what an alternative might be but our intent there is a heavy focus on prototyping and experimentation as the best learning and best connected to the art of cutting-edge technology,” he furthered.