Suchergebnisse

Congressional concern with cost overruns, or breaches, in several major defense acquisition programs led the authors, in a partnership with the Performance Assessments and Root Cause Analysis Office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, to investigate root causes by examining program reviews, analyzing data, participating in contractor briefings, and holding meetings with diverse stakeholders. In two companion studies, the authors analyzed the reasons for six program breaches and developed a methodology for carrying out root cause analyses. This report documents that methodology, whose key components include the following steps: formulate a hypothesis, set up long-lead-time activities, document the unit cost threshold breach, construct a time line of cost growth recent events from the program history, verify cost data and quantify cost growth, create program cost profiles and pinpoint occurrences of cost growth, match the time line with profiles and derive causes of cost growth, reconcile remaining issues, attribute cost growth to root causes, and create postulates. This study represents an important chronicle of the approach to use in performing such analyses -- one that others may use in their own analytic efforts. In addition, it gathers extensive documentation on the data sources used to examine the six program breaches investigated

U.S. policymakers have stepped up systematic disaster preparedness efforts sharply since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a plethora of federal initiatives. Against a backdrop of natural disasters that occur each year in the United States and heightened concern about pandemic influenza, there is an emerging national consensus that the best path is an all-hazards approach to disaster preparedness planning and that effective local planning is critical. Military installations and their civilian counterparts-local government and local health-care providers, especially the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs-can strengthen local-level disaster preparedness planning. This report describes the prototype capabilities-based planning tool that RAND developed and the two prototype networking tools that RAND adapted to help local military and civilian planners collaborate in disaster preparedness

This report presents observations from an ongoing research project that is tasked with assessing and improving Department of Defense (DoD) and Navy policy for command, control, communications, and intelligence and for weapon programs. This report examines a new information exchange standard, Universal Core (UCore), its relationship to DoD data strategy and policy, its implementation options, and related technical issues that should be resolved prior to the widespread adoption of this powerful new interoperability mechanism. Universal Core (UCore) 2.0 is a DoD and intelligence community information exchange framework that may be able to significantly improve interoperability between Department of Defense (DoD) information systems. UCore can support a broad range of data models with its data wrapping and extensibility capabilities. Before the Navy and DoD accelerate adoption of UCore, however, several issues must be addressed, including bandwidth, implementation option guidance, and implementation costs. The authors identify unanswered questions in each of these areas. To date, UCore pilot projects and related testing have not produced sufficient data on UCore bandwidth demands and cost implications, two factors that are very important to program managers. Furthermore, current DoD policy does not provide clear policy direction on UCore. To realize UCore's benefits, the Navy and DoD should continue to develop the UCore data exchange framework; encourage program experimentation with UCore; and capture detailed performance and cost data from future UCore pilot efforts to ensure that bandwidth, implementation, and cost issues are addressed

Some recent shipbuilding programs in the United States and Europe have involved multiple shipyards constructing major modules of each ship for final integration and testing at one shipyard. Most modern shipyards have the capability to build and integrate modules, whether those modules originate at that shipyard or at another. Some yards might need to modify their facilities, however, to handle large blocks, rather than completed vessels, at the waterfront. Shared build might not maintain skills at all shipyards equally, but it might help maintain skills at multiple shipyards. It requires the cooperating shipyards to set aside any competitive tendencies and help each other to the overall benefit of the program. Potential benefits include maximizing the learning curve, cross-yard learning, and outsourcing benefits. The Navy needs to decide what it wants from a shared-build strategy, then monitor and manage the program to ensure that it delivers the required outcome, as well as the vessels called for in the program

Although prisoner of war and detainee operations ultimately tend to become quite extensive, military planners and policymakers have repeatedly treated such operations as an afterthought. In reality, such operations can be a central part of the successful prosecution of a conflict. Determining how to gain knowledge from, hold, question, influence, and release captured adversaries can be an important component of military strategy and doctrine, both during the conflict and in reconstruction afterward. This monograph finds parallels in U.S. prisoner and detainee operations in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq: underestimation of the number to be held, hasty scrambling for resources to meet operational needs, and inadequate doctrine and policy. During the later phases of military operations, an attempt is often made to educate prisoners and detainees and influence their social and political values. The results of a survey by RAND researchers of Iraq detainees contravene many assumptions that had been guiding decisions related to detainee operations. The survey found that local and personal motives, along with nationalism, were more prevalent than religious ones and that detainees were often economic opportunists rather than illiterates seeking economic subsistence through the insurgency. Recommendations include that detailed doctrine should be in place prior to detention and that detainees should be surveyed when first detained