Opening Statement (As Prepared)
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I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here today and I look forward to hearing their testimonies on the current state of the industrial base and recommendations for how we may improve it.
I have become increasingly concerned about the inability of the military services to innovate and field capabilities faster. Acquisition programs take much too long to develop, produce, and become operational. Our current system is paralyzed by bureaucracy and an outdated process that tends to stifle innovation and ultimately prevents our military from adequately responding to the emerging technologies of potential adversaries. Despite a host of authorities granted by Congress to help accelerate and/or streamline acquisition programs, the Department continues to struggle to get out of their own way. In the early stages of development, programs spend an inordinate amount of time defining and re-defining requirements. In many cases, these requirements change after the award of a contract that was competitively bid on by industry. The result is an industry partner being forced to produce a system or capability that is substantially different that the one they originally bid on. This invariably leads to cost overruns and lengthy schedule delays. It has become standard to simply blame industry for this occurrence, but the reality is that the government owns much of the responsibility as well. The divide between government and industry has become too vast and has led to an inability to innovate at the pace required. The relationship between government and industry must be seen as a partnership where both parties are singularly focused on the same goal of fielding the needs of the warfighter. When a lack of trust exists, the government becomes too risk averse and industry becomes unwilling to make investments in new and innovative processes. Ultimately, this risk is instead pushed onto our servicemembers who are forced to respond to threats with aging or obsolete systems.
The question becomes what are we going to do to change this vicious cycle? We have heard from both government and industry experts that new authorities are not what is needed. Instead, we need to maximize the use of the ones already granted but most importantly we need to reshape the mentality of the system. That means minimizing requirements, shortening the approval process by removing unnecessary layers, and be willing to fail early and learn faster. Defeating the challenges facing the warfighters must be the core requirement of the acquisition system.
Leaders should question every detail of a proposal and determine if it is an improvement over current capabilities and whether it is an impediment to fielding in time to be relevant. The phrase, “that’s how we have always done it” should be banned from the acquisition community. At the same time, we need to be sending stable signals to industry so that they can properly invest. There should never be a time where a company feels that it is not worth it to work with the Department of Defense (DoD). Innovation is happening throughout the industrial base and we must be able to leverage it within DoD without threatening a company’s financial future.
Finally, industry must do their part as well to speed up innovation. This includes ensuring they are using modern and state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies like additive manufacturing (AM) and machine learning (ML). As new vendors are qualified and become part of the supply base, industry primes must be willing to subcontract with those vendors in order to potentially speed up procurement schedules. When a contractor fails to take advantage of innovations in the supply chain, they are not being a reliable partner in the effort to more quickly filed capabilities to the warfighter.
I want to thank the witnesses again and I yield back.
I have become increasingly concerned about the inability of the military services to innovate and field capabilities faster. Acquisition programs take much too long to develop, produce, and become operational. Our current system is paralyzed by bureaucracy and an outdated process that tends to stifle innovation and ultimately prevents our military from adequately responding to the emerging technologies of potential adversaries. Despite a host of authorities granted by Congress to help accelerate and/or streamline acquisition programs, the Department continues to struggle to get out of their own way. In the early stages of development, programs spend an inordinate amount of time defining and re-defining requirements. In many cases, these requirements change after the award of a contract that was competitively bid on by industry. The result is an industry partner being forced to produce a system or capability that is substantially different that the one they originally bid on. This invariably leads to cost overruns and lengthy schedule delays. It has become standard to simply blame industry for this occurrence, but the reality is that the government owns much of the responsibility as well. The divide between government and industry has become too vast and has led to an inability to innovate at the pace required. The relationship between government and industry must be seen as a partnership where both parties are singularly focused on the same goal of fielding the needs of the warfighter. When a lack of trust exists, the government becomes too risk averse and industry becomes unwilling to make investments in new and innovative processes. Ultimately, this risk is instead pushed onto our servicemembers who are forced to respond to threats with aging or obsolete systems.
The question becomes what are we going to do to change this vicious cycle? We have heard from both government and industry experts that new authorities are not what is needed. Instead, we need to maximize the use of the ones already granted but most importantly we need to reshape the mentality of the system. That means minimizing requirements, shortening the approval process by removing unnecessary layers, and be willing to fail early and learn faster. Defeating the challenges facing the warfighters must be the core requirement of the acquisition system.
Leaders should question every detail of a proposal and determine if it is an improvement over current capabilities and whether it is an impediment to fielding in time to be relevant. The phrase, “that’s how we have always done it” should be banned from the acquisition community. At the same time, we need to be sending stable signals to industry so that they can properly invest. There should never be a time where a company feels that it is not worth it to work with the Department of Defense (DoD). Innovation is happening throughout the industrial base and we must be able to leverage it within DoD without threatening a company’s financial future.
Finally, industry must do their part as well to speed up innovation. This includes ensuring they are using modern and state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies like additive manufacturing (AM) and machine learning (ML). As new vendors are qualified and become part of the supply base, industry primes must be willing to subcontract with those vendors in order to potentially speed up procurement schedules. When a contractor fails to take advantage of innovations in the supply chain, they are not being a reliable partner in the effort to more quickly filed capabilities to the warfighter.
I want to thank the witnesses again and I yield back.