Hearing of the Tactical Air Land Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee: Future Combat System and Force Protection Initiatives

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE TACTICAL AIR LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: FUTURE COMBAT SYSTEM AND FORCE PROTECTION INITIATIVES

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE CURT WELDON (R-PA)

WITNESSES PANEL I: PAUL L. FRANCIS, DIRECTOR, ACQUISITION AND SOURCING MANAGEMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; LIEUTENANT GENERAL JOSEPH L. YAKOVAC, JR., U.S. ARMY, MILITARY DEPUTY AND DIRECTOR, ARMY ACQUISITION CORPS. OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY(ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS AND TECHNOLOGY);

PANEL II: LIEUTENANT GENERAL BENJAMIN S. GRIFFIN, U.S. ARMY, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, G9 (PROGRAMMING, MATERIAL INTEGRATION AND MANAGEMENT), U.S. ARMY;

LIEUTENANT GENERAL EDWARD HANLON, JR., U.S. MARINE CORPS, DEPUTY COMMANDANT, COMBAT DEVELOPMENT, U.S. MARINE CORPS

LOCATION: 2118 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

TIME: 1:00 P.M.

BODY:

REP. CURT WELDON (R-PA): The subcommittee will come to order. This afternoon the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee meets to receive testimony on the land component related programs in the Fiscal Year 2005 budget request. We have two panels of witnesses. For the first panel the General Accounting Office and the Department of the Army will provide the subcommittee with their views on the Future Combat Systems Program. During the second panel, representatives of the Departments of the Army and the United States Marine Corps will provide us with testimony on force protection, unfunded requirements associated with equipping our forces and sustainment of the current force into the future.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. W. TODD AKIN (R-MO): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'll start with a couple of questions here. First of all, given the advances in technology which lead to designing and acquiring increasingly complex weapons systems, program management has become very challenging. Is that the reason the decision was made to go with an innovative means of meeting the management challenge for your Future Combat Systems Program, that you chose to select the Lead Systems Integrator for the program instead of remaining with the traditional Defense Department method or management process?

GEN. YAKOVAC: The answer to your question simply is, yes. I've been in this business now, when the Army chose me to go to it from Infantry for about 13 years. I have managed Abrams Bradley and I was the manager of record of Stryker. Dealing with Abrams and Bradley in retrospect as I went to Stryker was relatively easy. I had a set platform, I had a set piece of requirements that was focused on a capability. Going to Stryker increased the complexity of integration across the entire battle space. And so in order to that effectively in Stryker because of that those were already components that we had by and large, then I can go out to sister PMs and PEOs and say I need you to be part of my team to integrate this item onto this vehicle. The integration was relatively simple. We merely took the network of record and put it into the vehicle, relatively simple integration.

What FCS requires is a different level of complexity, and since the acquisition community on the government side has always been focused on the piece parts, in order to handle that complexity effectively and help us do a better job at the system of systems level and to control that was the reason why we brought in as a partner in this development the Lead Systems Integrator. And so it's that blend of the technical expertise that we still have in the piece parts and the integration of complex systems that we desire to get from industry. We went out and competed for a Lead Systems Integrator.

REP. AKIN: So I assume what you're saying-if I were to say could you offer an opinion on the decision or are you satisfied with the Lead Systems Integrator process you'd say not only are you satisfied, but you're saying it's probably the only way to go with the level of complexity we're talking about.

GEN. YAKOVAC: To be honest with you, when I was told I would be the manager of this program before I took this job, the first thing I asked because I'd never been involved-what is a Lead Systems Integrator. So I immediately went to Houston, Texas, talked to the space shuttle people, I went to MDA and talked to them, and tried to get some understanding of what Lead Systems Integrator really would do. And now, as I look back on that decision, I believe we would not be where we are today, nor do I believe we could get to where we need to go without that proper relationship. And that's what it has to be. They cannot be the lead in the sense of taking this program where they want to take it. We have to control the reins and they have to help us get there.

REP. AKIN: Would you recommend any changes to the way-is that balance working properly now? Would you recommend any changes to where we are or do you think we have things balanced out pretty well?

GEN. YAKOVAC: Right now, after a year, and I make a quarterly visit to the review, the government industry, I'm satisfied that we are still on track of us being in charge and holding the reins and them helping us get to where we need to go. But you've got to continue to make sure that that's the balance that you have. And today, yes, I am satisfied. I would not recommend to my leadership any changes at this time as we continue to evolve how an LSI does things.

Now, that being said, at the beginning in-not my prepared remarks, we got together as a team. We laid out tenets that we said in our relationship we wouldn't violate. And so we continually go back to those when we meet and say are we still okay with those. And those really guide that relationship because we felt that we had to have a baseline to start to and to compare to as we went along. If we begin to violate where we have to answer what's the right tenet or number two, are we going in a direction we don't want to go. So those are the things that hold us together right now.

REP. AKIN: So you put a structure together to help define that relationship and how that all is going to work.

GEN. YAKOVAC: Absolutely. Job one at the beginning was not the relationship, it was to define some basis for it.

REP. AKIN: Now, it would seem to me that at least-I used to sell for IBM a long time ago and sometimes when you're dealing with a lot of science and you're trying to explain to sort of average kinds of people who make decisions you've got to kind of make that jump. In this case is there a potential tension or problem with the fact that you're looking in a very visionary sense at what something is going to look like. And it seems, I imagine to you, fairly tangible how it's going to work, but to somebody else it may be-or it's hard to get the concept even.

Does that make it then a threat that people are going to come and try and take money away from it and undermine it just because they don't understand it? And is that a kind of a constant thing that you have to pay attention to? Because, I mean, if you de-fund it, then that's going to hurt the schedule, isn't it?

GEN. YAKOVAC: Yes, sir. My contention is that the best way we could keep this program of record going is for information exchange. Any time and anywhere I'm more than willing to come over and dialogue with anybody and I think the members of your staffs know me well enough that I have done that, because this is so different and it is challenging that you can get-like you said-enamored with the technologies and then not understanding the management process by which we are trying to manage the risk. And I admit-and I did in my statement-there is risk. But I think we've identified it, we've identified off ramps.

The key here is to be true to what your plan is. We historically have not kept to the plan. We have got to a decision point and said well, look, a little bit more money and we'll get there. We can't afford to do that in this program. If we get there we've got to make the choice. We take the off ramp or we stick with it and then we stick with the consequences, because in most cases the issue will be cost. And as was stated in the chairman's opening remarks, this program cannot afford the pool any more resources away from other missions that the Army has to perform.

And so it's that discipline in the process and the information sharing that people have access to. And the way that we have presented even the program-this is the first program I know of record that when we offered it, I was told by a lot of people don't do it, where people on the staffs, on your staffs, have full access to our earned value management. We will train them, we will give them access to it, and they can come and report to you on a day-by-day basis if that's what they want to do how this program is doing in terms of cost schedule and performance.

Now, the downside of that is for somebody who may not exactly what that means, I can be answering, or the folks who work for me, a lot of e-mails about wait a minute, this just went south. Well, no, it didn't. We're okay, let me tell you about it. But the idea of information exchange was much more important than keeping something back. And I think that's the key to this.

REP. AKIN: My time is getting a little short, but I'm very interested in what you're saying. It seems like one of the things that's going to really help produce a level of comfort within the program is if there's some fairly clearly defined, fairly tangible kinds of objectives and you see those things starting to be met and people can actually see it and hold it and feel it. It seems like that's going to make a big difference to us. Is your schedule set up to do some of those things so people can actually start to see pieces coming together?

GEN. YAKOVAC: Yes, sir. About a year ago when we went in, we said the big thing that has to happen this year for this program to keep on schedule is for us to do trade analysis and come up with what would be acceptable to the user as the appropriate materiel solution to a requirement. For example, when you look at the infantry carrier which is part of this system, when we went into it there was debate based on how this was going to fight, what size weapon mounted on that vehicle would be acceptable. We had various options. We had options of what's available today, we had options of putting more money into it, both the weapons system and the munition. We are now going through that trade. We are necking down now to a solution that is probably the best in terms of not technical, but meeting the requirements of performance by going to a candidate the Marines already have and developed.

And so if we continue to make informed choices and we continue to balance cost schedule and performance, then we can continue to be successful. Is it easy to do? No, but that's the key to this. And that's the example what you just asked. We are making those decisions. We have a review coming up where we are going to bundle some of those and make some of those big decisions that will no doubt make "Meet the Press" and people want to know why did you pick this caliber of cannon and why did you do that, what's going to be the balance of cost schedule performance and we're doing that today. And I think as we make those decisions and people see that we're not going for the far out technical solution they might say hey, maybe they're going to make some good decisions about reducing risk.

REP. AKIN: Just one last quick question. When you started overall looking at Future Combat Systems, did you have still some basic parameters of what sort of warfighting environment that you had to be able to deal with? In other words, did you have some very broad parameters of a modern army is going to have to deal with this, this and this, and so are you working toward a set of very specific kinds of things in that way?

GEN. YAKOVAC: Absolutely. Before we ever had a program, the work settlement TRADOC was define those parameters. What would we need to do in the future? What type of Army would we need and what capabilities would allow that Army to win and fight on that future battlefield.

So before you see a program, that work is already done and it's vetted and it's discussed. We get the intel folks to come in and try to project out and that's always kind of fun because everybody has a different vision of the future. And then you agree on what it is, and then you bring the warfighters, the guys who get paid to do that, not the acquisition developer to sit down-and say based on that scenario-and what we know today, here's the capabilities-the capabilities we think we need. Not define as specific technologies, but in terms of capabilities and then that's where we come in. We come in, based on what you want, now let us come back and give you the technical solutions to those capabilities that you have now outweighed, also based on how you intend to fight.

Doesn't do you any good to have a capability if you don't fight it that way. And so it's that entire process of doctrine that evolves out of trade-off that gets us then the materiel guy to come in and say now that we know what that is and how you want to do it, let's partner with you to bring that to reality. And that's how this program started. It didn't start with the materiel, it started with what you're talking, a vision of how we want to fight and where we want to be.

REP. AKIN: That's really encouraging.

Thank you very much, General.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

END