united states government accountability office

Observations on Weapon Program Performance and Acquisition Reforms

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10706t.pdf

While the technology levels of DOD programs entering system development have increased, these programs are still not regularly conducting early systems engineering reviews, which help ensure there is a match between requirements and resources. We have previously reported that before starting development, programs should hold systems engineering events, such as the preliminary design review, to ensure that requirements are defined and feasible and that the proposed design can meet those requirements within cost, schedule, and other system constraints. We have also found that programs conducting these events prior to development start experienced less research and development cost growth and shorter delays in the delivery of initial operational capabilities than programs that conducted these reviews after development start.11 Almost all nonship programs (37 of 40 that provided data) in our latest assessment have held at least one of three key systems engineering reviews (system requirements review, system functional review, and preliminary design review). However, only 1 of 37 programs that held a preliminary design review did so before the start of system development. The remaining programs held the review, on average, 30 months after development start. The Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 established a statutory requirement for programs to conduct a preliminary design review before milestone B, so we expect improvements in this area.

Programs that have held critical design reviews in recent years reported higher levels of design knowledge; however, few programs are demonstrating that the design is capable of meeting performance requirements by testing an integrated prototype.