HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The Army's chief acquisitions executive, Heidi Shyu, is reviewing the way the Army buys materiel, to be rid of "some of the dumb things that we're doing to ourselves."
Speaking with reporters at the Association of the US Army convention Wednesday, Shyu said she and her counterparts at the other services have provided feedback to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, for acquisition reform efforts.
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"If you could just alleviate by statute some of the onerous documentation you have to do," Shyu said. "There's a lot of stuff we provided to Rep. Thornberry: 'Here's the low hanging fruit, if you can help us.'"
The highlight of the Army's contribution is a list of the 79 different documents that must be submitted for a program to become reality. One of these is a manpower estimate, meant to describe exactly who would execute the program over its life, a piece of information that fluctuates so often it needs to be continuously updated.
Army a Acquisition reform, and the the saddling programs with unattainable requirements, was a theme at the Army conference this week. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno discussed with reporters his call for the service chiefs to be given back a voice in the acquisitions process, a notion Shyu said she favors, too.
Some of the Army's problems are in Defense Department regulations and some are internal, Shyu said. Asked to respond to Army Secretary John McHugh's characterization in Ccongressional testimony last month — "The Army's track record on acquisition programs is too often a tale of failure," in reference to major programs — Shyu said programs are often doomed by unattainable requirements.
In such programs — Shyu name checked the cancelled Commanche helicopter and Future Combat Systems — the Army will spend time spinning its wheels and spending its money in a cycles of revising and redesigning requirements. FCS, she said, was overloaded with technologies, set to be developed on an accelerated schedule.
"Dictating technology, you command this to appear, it doesn't work that way," she said. "That's part of the problem, and it's a lesson learned."
The Army has been more successful making incremental improvements, she said, citing the leap between the Apache "A" model and the latest "E" model.
Streamlining organizations and authorities does not mean getting rid of the system's checks and balances. However, the government can learn from business' ability to move quickly, Shyu said.
"No one should have authority over everything, but there are a lot of inefficiencies," she said. "What helps you to be agile is asking what requirements are realizable, what's the cost, what's the risk, what's the schedule you can actually achieve. And if you run into trouble, don't take a year to adjust the requirement."
Email: jgould@defensenews.com
Twitter: @reporterjoe
Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.
