3 ms·
I used to work in a DoD acquisitions role (as sort of an engineering analyst). It's not the actual planes or engineering design work that costs so much money.
by tekdude 6y ago
I used to work in a DoD acquisitions role (as sort of an engineering analyst).
It's not the actual planes or engineering design work that costs so much money. Most of the time, the companies building the systems know what they're doing. (Not always though... I saw some awful stuff...)
The real costs come from all of the work necessary to get those systems through the government's testing and certification processes. Typically, each individual subsystem has to be checked by a different DoD agency that specializes in that kind of technology. That means dozens or hundreds of similar but different documentation packages need to be created, reviewed, revised, and signed off...
- azinman2 6y agoIs that an opportunity for software to standardize and be able to output different kinds of specs? Or is this something only a human can do?
- bigtones 6y agoDefense is as much about creating and maintaining jobs as it is about building war machines. The military-industrial complex is very politically motivated to keep jobs over any real need for efficiency gains.
- gumby 6y agoThe pentagon has been trying for decades to shift as much as possible to COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) supply with limited success. In their defense they have some exotic requirements; not just things like warplaenes but simply buying things that will continue to be available for n years into the future. Also in their defense: the contractors go out of their way to paperwork their way out of anything standard. This is like med device companies who try to wedge a “consumable” into their otherwise single-purchase device. But the biggest problem is the military themselves who can’t write specs that could be satisfied by anything COTS, adding random requirements because they aren’t subject to the usual fit-for-purpose constraints of a business. And Congress also gets to weigh in, which, while crucial, often doesn’t help...
- runako 6y agoI get all of that, 100%. I'm also saying they have been building these planes for nearly 50 years. At what point have we finished paying for the infrastructure to build these? And I'm guessing it's not possible to add one more plane to this order at or near the 1985 price, which speaks to cost inflation beyond one-offs like documentation updates etc.