EXCLUSIVE Air Force Weapons Schedule Woes Worsen; Costs Dip $229M « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary: For the third year in a row, Air Force weapon programs have busted their schedules, taking longer to field, this time adding another 112 months to the 29 major weapons programs that the service monitors.
It’s a pattern. In 2012, schedule performance “continues to remain problematic and shows no signs of improvement.” In 2013, schedule problems mounted, getting a “poor” rating from the service, with more than 102 months added to major programs between September 2012 and September 2013.
Here’s the summary for the 2014 schedule problems from the annual Air Force report — “Performance of the Air Force Acquisition System” — on acquisition performance by Robert Pollock, director of the services’ acquisition excellence and change office (did you have to take a breath after that title?).
Schedule Performance remains challenged. An additional 112 cumulative months of schedule was added to Active ACAT I’s Portfolio for the 29 programs that consistently reported DAEs updates in FY14. Improvement is observed in schedule achievement due to several programs accomplishing their predetermined milestones; however approximately half of the ACAT I’s are estimating their next APB milestone objective will be missed by 3 months or less and one third of AF ACAT I MDAP/MAIS programs are estimating they will miss their upcoming milestone objective by six months or more. The active ACAT I MDAP average cycle time from Milestone B to C is 81 months and MS B to Initial Operating Capability (IOC) is 103 months.
