* The GAO(Government Accountability Office) studied how the fast capability procured via joint urgent operational needs ended up being fielded. Such fulfillment amounted to at least $76.9B for FY 2005-10 according to DoD. Some programs such as the the MRAP Recovery Vehicle tow truck were fielded within 6 months of validation, while several other initiatives were delayed beyond the targeted 2 years because of requirement or contracting issues. You would expect off-the-shelf solutions to, well, fly off the shelves, but while they do get fielded faster overall, delays early in the process reduced the difference with custom efforts. See chart at the bottom of this entry.
* Northrop Grumman’s sales decreased by 8% to $6.2B in Q1 2012 vs. a year ago, a slight acceleration of the rate of sales decrease seen through 2011. Electronic Systems is the division that lost the least (-5%) and Technical Services the most (-10%). Among the factors explaining the decline in sales: low F/A-18 and F-35 deliveries from Boeing and Lockheed Martin respectively. The total backlog shrunk by $400M to $39.1B ($25B or 64% of which is funded) while new business awards amounted to $5.8B.
* Defense contractors in Canada have gripes about “vaporware” DND competitions that cost them millions to bid for yet never materialize.
* Acting DoD acquisition chief Frank Kendall recently sent an updated list [PDF] of Major Automated Information Systems (MAIS) under OSD(Office of the Secretary of Defense) oversight, based on input from William May, OASD Networks and Information Integration (NII). 23 programs have been taken off the previous list from 2007 because they have reached the sustainment phase, have been restructured or terminated, or are too small to meet the MAIS threshold. Think of MAIS [PDF] as MDAPs for IT.
* Analytical tools to help with DoD product support and sustainment have been regrouped by the DAU(Defense Acquisition University) here. This still feels a bit rough in some cases: yesterday’s posting about a probability/consequence screening software tool just links to the Air Force Manpower Agency’s homepage where said tool is nowhere to be found. Maybe logging in with CAC shows more? Other pages such as the one about the Improved Performance Research Integration Tool proved more directly useful.
* 5 years after the Orbital Express demonstration, DARPA is hosting a conference next month in Arlington, VA, to discuss on-orbit satellite servicing.
* Congressman Duncan Hunter [R-CA] want the services to be required to submit their unfunded wishlists to Congress. There’s an interesting Freudian slip in the Military Times’ article, see if you can spot it:
“The effort comes after the service chiefs declined to send unfounded priority lists to Congress this year, marking the first time since 1995 that this additional information was not provided.”
* Chief of US Army Transportation Brig. Gen. Stephen E. Farmen (who just got his star) has iPhone and Audi envy for his trucks.
but were delivered more Quickly after contract award (GAO)