I guess that the idea of requiring a surety bond preliminary to the government's contracting for a ship is not a viable option.

 

I believe that I have read that the ancient Roman government contracted out to individuals and syndicates who were required to put up bonds guaranteeing their performance.

I believe that I have read that the ancient Roman government contracted out to individuals and syndicates who were required to put up bonds guaranteeing their performance.

Actually, there is something close to this - the default conditions of the FAR stipulate that if a contractor defaults on a contract they can lose the ability to have future bids considered on ANY future federal contract. For a defense contractor that can essentially mean the company is kaput. There is also the possibility of late delivery fines or decreased payment if the acceptance criteria are met.

 

However,  the problem that the government runs into (in defense procurement and other areas) is that the there is insufficient diversity in the marketplace to really support competitive bidding.  Consider the JSF - there were two bidders. For naval construction there are how many shipyards to choose from? - not many. In that sort of environment, there is not a lot the DoD can do to enforce good behavior from a contractor - they could invoke the default clause and kill the company, but then they would have no one to build their ships/airplanes/etc...  One way around this is to allow foreign companies to bid, but many people (from Congress to the press to the military to domestic industry) don't like the idea of relying on off-shore industry to protect the country.

 

Another source of problems is changing criteria from the DoD and insecure funding. A project starts up, then gets canceled, then restarts, then the requirements are changed, so the contractor needs more money, so it gets canceled again, then restarted, then its 5 years later and the requirements need to be changed again, etc...

 

This is not to say that there aren't fundamental problems with how procurement is done. Ben Rich (director of the Lockheed Skunk Works) details a number of them in his book 'Skunk Works.'

 

 

Be cautious, if you listened to the media and the "commenteriat" you'd be convinced that the finest armoured combat team in the world, the M-1 and the M-2/3, were nothing but dogs...

 

Right now it is stylish to comment on the failure of the LPD-17.  This may or may not be true, notice we don't get any reports on the good points of the boat...I doubt that there is ANY program that has only bad points, so we are lacking any baseline to compare...how bad is the LD-17?  As compared to other lead vessels of various class, as compared to the testing standards, is 95% pass rate a "fail" as far as the navy is concerned?  Who knows, it's not really mentioned in many of the articles here is it?

 

Bottom-line: be cautious, a lot of this is like asking the EX-Husband's opinion of his former wife, you aren't going get the whole story...

Right now it is stylish to comment on the failure of the LPD-17. 

It's always stylish to comment on the faults of a major government procurement (military or not). This is is because it gives everyone someone to be upset with, depending on your preference: "stupid" Congress, "warmongering" DoD, "greedy" contractors, "inattentive" public - pick your preferred demon and you can make a case to blame them. This makes a much better story than "Government Procurement Goes According to Plan"

 

There is probably a bit of shadenfreude in all these stories...