Defense Acquisition

The Defense Department (DOD) launched the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration Program in 1994 in response to the recommendations of the 1986 Packard Commission and a 1991 Defense Science Board study. The program is intended to determine the extent to which a given mature technology will improve military capabilities before entering the normal acquisition process and, by using mature technology, will reduce the length of time to develop and acquire weapons systems. The Packard Commission concluded that defense acquisition could be improved significantly by emulating the practices of successful commercial companies. Accordingly, the Commission recommended building and testing prototypes to assess military utility and provide a basis for realistic cost estimates before committing to acquisition. The Defense Science Board study discussed the need for early dialogue between the potential system's user and producer for a proper analysis of costs, risks, and operational capability. This report discusses whether (1) the program's selection process includes criteria that are adequate to ensure that only mature technologies are chosen for prototypes and (2) guidance on transitioning to the normal acquisition process ensures that a prototype appropriately completes product and concept development and testing before entering production. GAO also assess DOD's current practice of procuring more prototypes than needed to assess the military utility of a mature technology.

GAO noted that: (1) through the determination of military value of mature technologies and their use in the acquisition process, ACTDs have the potential to reduce the time to develop and acquire weapon systems; (2) however, several aspects of the ACTD program can be improved; (3) DOD's process for selecting ACTD candidates does not include adequate criteria for assessing the maturity of the proposed technology and has resulted in the approval of ACTD projects that included immature technology; (4) DOD has improved its guidance on the maturity of the technologies to be used in ACTD projects but the revised guidance describes several types of exceptions under which immature technologies may be used; (5) where DOD approves immature technologies as ACTD program candidates and time is spent conducting developmental activities, the goal of reduced acquisition cycle time will not be realized; (6) further, guidance on entering technologies into the normal acquisition process is not sufficient to ensure that a prototype completes product and concept development and testing before entering production; (7) the guidance does not mention the circumstances when transition to development may be appropriate or the kinds of developmental activities that may be appropriate; (8) while commercial items that do not require any further development could proceed directly to production, many ACTDs may still need to enter the engineering and manufacturing development phase to proceed with product and concept development and testing before production begins; (9) through the ACTD early user demonstration, DOD is expected to obtain more detailed knowledge about its technologies before entering into the acquisition process; (10) however, in the one case in which an ACTD has proceeded into production, DOD made that decision before completing product and concept development and testing, thereby accepting programmatic risks that could offset the schedule and other benefits gained through the ACTD process; (11) DOD's current practice of procuring prototypes beyond those needed for the basic ACTD demonstration and before completing product and concept development and testing is unnecessarily risky; and (12) this practice risks wasting resources on the procurement of items that may not work as expected or may not have sufficient military utility and risks a premature and excessive commitment to production.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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