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An assessment of the lead systems integrator concept as applied to the future combat system program
Defense AR Journal, Dec, 2005 by Scott Flood, Paul Richard
Another function critical to the successful execution of a program is properly defining the program up front. During our discussions with both government and contractor personnel, every individual we interviewed stated that the Army did not invest enough time up front to define the FCS program specifications and LSI contractual statement of work to include the necessary checks and balances to retain proper government control of the program. As a result, the LSI has often taken advantage of contractual interpretations to seize greater control over the program.
An example of this is in the testing phase of the program. Lack of clearly defined test requirements in the LSI contract has resulted in considerable debate between the LSI contractor and independent government agencies with regard to who has control over conducting the preproduction and production qualification tests. The LSI claims they have control over conducting the tests based on their interpretation of the contract, and the government test organizations claim that they have statutory rights over independent testing. It would have been impossible to clearly define all of the testing requirements so early in the program, but the differing interpretations on both sides are causing conflicts (Ibid).
LSI subcontractors have also stated that the Government's contract with the LSI is not defined enough, and that it lacks the checks and balances to retain control over the LSI contractor, both now and in the future (Source #5, 2005). In addition, government PMs assigned to oversee subcontracted portions of the FCS program claim they are struggling with deconflicting the government's contract with the LSI and the LSI's contract with their subcontractors. As stated earlier, some second- and third-tier PMs have noted that the performance requirements of the LSI's contract with its subcontractor do not match performance requirements in the government's contract with the LSI (Source #4, 2005). As a result, there is a constant struggle between the PMs and their LSI counterparts over which requirements are correct and should be enforced at the subcontractor level.
Many of the problems associated with implementing the LSI concept have been recognized by senior leadership within the Army acquisition community. In other cases, however, these problems have been lost in the daily flow of information due to the enormity of the FCS program. Nonetheless, Army leadership still recognizes that 1) this is the first time the Army has implemented such a large scale program, 2) the program was rapidly put together in one year, and 3) this is the Army's first experience employing the LSI concept (Source #1, 2005). They have accepted the fact that the Army may not have worked out all of the bugs associated with using an LSI, and that there will be mistakes. However, the philosophy stressed by the Army acquisition leadership is that government organizations must learn from these mistakes, adapt and institute the needed changes to address these problems, and then move on with the program. There can be no turning back. The majority of these issues can be attributed to "learning curve" types of problems associated with implementing a new acquisition strategy. Nonetheless, with better up-front planning many of these implementation problems could have been avoided.
