Our fear is limiting DoD’s Affordability Quest
December 1st, 2010
The DoD wants to save money, but they can’t do it alone. But can they possibly succeed? Do they have fighting a chance? Can they get it done? Wrong pronouns.
Can we possibly succeed?
Do we have a fighting chance?
Can we get it done?
In difficult times it’s easy to be critical of others, to make excuses, to look outside. (They, they, they.) In difficult times it’s hard find the level 5 courage to be critical ourselves, to take responsibility, to look inside. (We, we, we.) But we must look inside because that’s where the answer is. We know our work best; we’re the only ones who can reinvent our work; we’re the ones who can save money; we’re responsible.
Changing our actions, our work, is scary, but that’s what the DoD is asking for; we must overcome our fear. But to overcome it we must acknowledge it, see it as it is, and work through it.
Here’s the DoD’s challenge: “Contractors – provide us more affordable systems.” There are two ways we can respond.
The fear-based response (the they response): The DoD won’t accept the changes. In fact, they’ve never liked change. They’ll say no to any changes. They always have.
The seeing things as they are response (the we response): We must try, since not trying is the only way to guarantee failure. Things are different now. Change is acceptable. However, the facts are we don’t know what changes to propose, we don’t know what creates cost, and we don’t know how to design low cost, low complexity systems. We were never taught. We need to develop our capability if we’re to be successful.
The they response: Their MIL specs dictate the design and they won’t budge on them. They’ll say no to any changes. They always have.
The we response: We must try, since not trying is the only way to guarantee failure. Things are different now. Change is acceptable. However, the facts are we don’t know why we designed it that way, we don’t know all that much about the design, we don’t know what creates cost, and we don’t know how to design low cost, low complexity systems. We were never taught. We need to develop our capability if we’re to be successful.
The they response: All they care about is performance. They are driving the complexity. And when push comes to shove, they don’t care about cost. They’ll say no to any changes. They always have.
The we response: We must try, since not trying is the only way to guarantee failure. Things are different now. Change is acceptable. However, the facts are we don’t know what truly controls performance, we don’t know what we can change, we don’t know the sensitivities, we don’t know what creates cost, and we don’t know how to design low cost, low complexity systems. We were never taught. We need to develop our capability if we’re to be successful.
The DoD has courageously told us they want to overcome their fear. Let’s follow their lead and overcome ours. It will be good for everyone.
Posted in 5 Responses to “Our fear is limiting DoD’s Affordability Quest”
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Mike Shipulski
DoD or not, life critical or not, we must know what are designs will do before we sell them. That goes without saying. I argue that DoD products are especially ripe for cost reduction (and simultaneous performance improvement) because cost has never been a prime concern. The second part of my arguement is that DoD contractors don’t know how to do it because no one has asked them.
I would also argue that anyone with a “We” mentality has no business dealing with the DoD – military paranoia (justified or not) is guaranteed to extinguish any sort of cooperative mentality. Why risk having your ideas captured and destroyed by a faceless bureaucrat with a rubber stamp? The DoD has the power to classify anything they want and therefore make *anything* unsalable in the civilian marketplace – with no chance of appeal. Why would anybody with any shred of originality and/or creativity have any desire to help make life easier for the great black hole? Is avoiding the kiss of death on your professional career not a rational and logical move?
Why would anybody with a shred of integrity want to help the military make killing cheaper, anyway? One of the few things that used to keep the US away from “adventures” like Iraq and Afghanistan was the expense of fighting. If we “help” by making that stuff cheaper, it also means more of OUR kids getting killed for no reason. Screw that – if anything, we need to make it even MORE expensive.
For a guy who has interesting and creative ideas for many things, you are in deeply suspect territory on this one – what are you doing dealing the the DoD, anyway?
From Dave, “For a guy who has interesting and creative ideas for many things, you are in deeply suspect territory on this one – what are you doing dealing the the DoD, anyway?”
Dave, in my opinion, all countries will have a military branch going forward and funding will come from tax payer dollars. I want to reduce costs of DoD stuff so we can free up tax dollars to spend on things like education, healthcare, our infrastructure (e.g., bridges), renewable energy, and veterans’ well being.
Mike
I agree with Mike. If the DoD were asked to make cost reduction more of a consistent core requirement, they would. Several DFMA users, such as Boeing and Raytheon, have already made stunning progress in this area–well before the economic crisis.
Under McDonnell Douglas, for example, the F/A-18 EF Hornet was redesigned in the early- to mid-90s–with 42% fewer parts than the C/D model and weighing 1,000 pounds less, even while growing in size by 25%.
Everything is possible–even a defense department that is someday more about strategic “defense” than misplaced adventurism.
[…] no contract. (There’s no reason military stuff should cost what it does, other than the DoD contractors don’t know how design things cost effectively.) The DoD should educate their contractors how to design products to reduce material cost, assembly […]