1. Cost Impacts:
Successes include performance requirements & review to baseline design to report earned value to achieve cost accountability. Life of programme strategy executed to achieve cost savings by leveraging qualification testing. Fundamental updates are issued & expected to be adopted coming at cost problems & time consumption to integrate into finished product. Changes in standardised requirements undo/override customised capabilities create need to operate cross-programme & cross-functional aspects in addition to detailed impact assessments.
2. Fiscal Requirements:
Programme cuts, contracting issues, design misinterpretations & testing issues can set back timelines of work effort. Funding for requirements changes is rare & must account for process improvements across system partners. Direction of Funding priorities & single administration structure must drive common services. Implementing tailored procurement to accelerate product delivery to user with minimal risk is currently pre-decisional & not yet an approved strategy. Contracting strategy requires tailoring required documents for proposal review/contract decision, initially limiting supplier for task orders for follow-on efforts to advance project
3. Contract Information:
Improving contract reliability requirements in the context of complex product is currently not tied to operationally relevant timeframe would result in more confidence in programme success. Procurement actions underway with proposal received, working through contract award issues in order to stay on schedule. Product functions as form-fit-function replacements are where they need to be from reliable, build & affordability perspective. Gaining consensus on how to maximise information available to inform scope of operational testing is work in progress.
4. Product Prototypes:
Breaking out products into separate programmes provides clarity to unit cost, schedule & performance parameters, keeping investment decisions at appropriate decision-making levels. Adding product orders helps keep costs down & when product orders decrease, supplier base is challenged. Deep dives are required to evaluate opportunities to break out parts of build line. Establishing system requirements, function & allocated baselines are important part of programme progression. Prototyping & test activity provides information to inform system design process & risk reduction to support fielding of critical capabilities. Innovative, streamlined & agile procurement approach delivers operational capability driven by technology from prototype.
5. Testing Capability:
Programme schedule risk due to budget reductions & compressed test timelines to meet requirements. Schedule & budget to not allow for significant correction of testing deficiencies Tailored milestone documentation finding appropriate balance of value-added efforts, statuary compliance & oversight mechanisms useful to ability to execute mission. New procurement approaches utilise reviews focusing on affordability & cost/capability trade-offs, representing good model to leverage for future programmes. Deficiency Reviews align prioritisation of trouble reports with potential to pose risks to measures of effectiveness or suitability & correct cost/schedule parameters.
6. Schedule Events:
Schedule margins help to balance discovery driving delays with opportunity to accelerate, putting emphasis on applying execution standards. Insight into system build costs involving poor quality, indirect costs & schedule helps establish best incentive arrangements for contracts. Reducing build times & costs to meet delivery needs sets baseline for future lots, benefiting from economic orders of quantity & breakout of components. Cost drivers of maintenance are identified using business case reviews to identify optimum sources of product repair. Transparent, events-based approaches enable decisions to move forward based more on technical readiness compared to schedule, avoiding compromise of performance requirements.
7. Process Quality:
Reviews conducted to identify areas where urgency drove delivery of systems prior to completing testing information contributing to reliability issues, demonstration of operating life & improve quality of process. Programme opportunities for supplier competition include all builds, operation of fielded product, system engineering & test support. Monitoring of cost, schedule & performance highlights funding shifts, disruption due to unplanned activities.
8. Build Reviews:
Build process improvements are tempered by inefficiencies impacting execution & costs when build quantities ramp up. Without bundling, requirements can be levied on programme without funding, causing planned capabilities to become out of scope. Concerns in review process & approval of procurement milestones & contracting documents include serial processes, documentation prior to decision point & duration of reviews.
9. Contract Structure:
Complex coordination & maturation of processes executed in fixed price contract structures introduces risk of using preferred control approach. Programme Schedule experiences cost growth because of prototype build cost underestimation & complex information assurance requirements. Requirements are reasonably allocated between platforms to maximise performance & minimise costs of programme.
10. Phase Targets:
Expiration of funding creates periodic carryover situation without deliberate rephasing resulting in disbursement rates below target goals, causing deferred requirements. Programme incorporates of remedies for initial approach errors, imprecise contract language, process information associated with deliverables & incomplete metrics definitions
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