LMCO Not So Good DCMA Says

Our freind Nick Schwellenbach over at the Project on Government Oversight dredged up a pretty damn­ing report from the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency that calls Lockheed Martin’s air­craft divi­sion to the car­pet for not keep­ing close track of costs.

Lockheed Martin, the worlds largest defense con­trac­tor, does “not pro­vide the req­ui­site def­i­n­i­tion and dis­ci­pline to prop­erly plan and con­trol com­plex, multi­bil­lion dol­lar weapon sys­tems acqui­si­tion pro­grams,” states the exec­u­tive sum­mary of a November 2007 Pentagon report obtained by the Project On Government Oversight. Questions about this report are likely to be raised this morn­ing at a Senate Armed Service Committee hear­ing on weapons acquisition.

The report by the Defense Contract Management Agency found that Lockheed Martins mil­i­tary air­craft divi­sion based in Fort Worth, Texas, is not com­pli­ant with contractually-​​required indus­try guide­lines for track­ing and man­ag­ing costs called the “Earned Value Management System.” EVMS helps con­trac­tors and the gov­ern­ment spot poten­tial cost prob­lems before they bal­loon out of con­trol. This April the GAO reported $295 bil­lion in cost growth for the 95 major weapons sys­tems it reviewed bring­ing their esti­mated total price tag to $1.6 trillion.

The report will be high­lighted today at a hear­ing of the Senate Armed Services Committee which will ask ques­tions about “acqui­si­tion of major defense weapons sys­tems” of John Young — who needs no intro­duc­tion — and Katherine Schinasi, the GAO’s Managing Director of Acquisition and Sourcing Management (what­ever the heck that means)…Our boy Colin Clark will be there to hear what’s what and he’ll have some follow-​​up gouge for you on what goes on.

The decline of Pentagon and con­trac­tor empha­sis on EVMS was an unin­tended con­se­quence of 1990s acqui­si­tion reform, Dr. James I. Finley, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, told POGO. EVM is get­ting more atten­tion through­out indus­try now that the DoD is stress­ing compliance.

Ouch…

– Christian

June 3rd, 2008 | Data Diving | 28828 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2008/06/03/lmco-not-so-good-dcma-says/LMCO+Not+So+Good+DCMA+Says2008-06-03+12%3A43%3A35Ward You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.