Mike Griffin’s tough talk to Pentagon contractors: Be a team player, look at your own red tape

[Elderberry]

Space News by Sandra Erwin 8/12/2018

Griffin: "Most of what you’re doing by definition is not ‘value added.'"

Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin sees time ticking away and his agenda moving at a glacial pace.

“I have two and a half years remaining as a political appointee in this job,” he reminded a large audience of defense contractors last week at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.

Griffin has frequently lashed out at the Pentagon’s oppressive procurement process that slows down innovation as China closes in. This time he called out the defense industry for contributing to the problem.

“I’m here tonight to ask all of you: I may be the head coach but you’re all on the team,” Griffin said. His main beef with the industry is that, like the government, it is “mired in process.”

“I will be asking you every chance I get to look at what you’re doing and find ways to either eliminate it or shortcut it,” Griffin said, “because most of what you’re doing by definition is not ‘value added.’”

That sounds “harsh,” he continued. But it is necessary criticism at a time when the Chinese are measuring progress in advanced weapons developments in months, “while we’re in years.”

The said the average DoD and NASA program takes 16.5 years to get from “statement of need” to “initial operational capability.”

Griffin believes fast decision making is the reason China is outpacing the United States in the development of hypersonic weapons. “They are not inherently brighter nor do they work harder than we do. What are they doing differently? They are not doing a lot of things that clearly do not need to be done. They are not consulting a lot of people that plain just do not need to be consulted.”

For DoD to move faster, “each of you at every single level have to look at what you are doing and weed out that which you do not need to do and weed out the people who do not need to be consulted. That is the only way.”

More: https://spacenews.com/mike-griffins-tough-talk-to-pentagon-contractors-be-a-team-player-look-at-your-own-red-tape/