Jura The idiot
General
Apr 11, 2018
Pentagon Could Kill F-35 JPO, But Not Until 2035
Apr 13, 2018
and
Pentagon Could Kill F-35 JPO, But Not Until 2035
Apr 13, 2018
The Pentagon is laying the groundwork to dissolve the Joint Program Office, which has been the single hub for management of the global Joint Strike Fighter program since its inception.
But the transition to separate, service-run program offices won’t be complete until 2030-2035, according to.
At the direction of Congress, the examined several alternatives to the existing F-35 management structure, the gargantuan operation called the JPO that currently spans three U.S. services and 12 nations. The full report, recently delivered to the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, lays out the strengths and weaknesses of each alternative, and makes the case for a phased approach to transitioning management of the F-35 program to a service-run structure.
“The F-35 Joint Program Office supports this initiative to ensure the Defense Department, U.S. Services, and our international partners have the most effective management structure to deliver warfighting capability,” according to the JPO. “We are implementing improvements to increase transparency, and we'll continue to assess and evaluate the most efficient ways to support and manage this vital national defense program.”
Based on the study’s recommendations, the Pentagon will gradually dissolve the JPO over a period of nearly two decades, while moving to establish two separate U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy-run program offices that report to their respective program executive officers (PEO)/service acquisition executives (SAE). The department hopes the deliberate, phased approach laid out in the report enables the services to take on a greater role in program oversight while minimizing cost and risk.
The study applauds the existing JPO structure for driving commonality, interoperability, shared costs and economies of scale. But the size and complexity of the JPO organization limits management effectiveness and makes it difficult for the U.S. services to have adequate insight and voice, it found.
“The JPO organizational structure is not optimized for any single customer or variant, but is instead focused on the common enterprise-level solution,” the report says. “This focus at the enterprise level comes at the expense of focusing on individual customer needs that often do not align perfectly (or at all) with the organization’s current enterprise-level focus.”
Now is the right time to begin the transition to a service-run structure, the report argues. The recent overhaul of the Pentagon’s acquisition oversight structure actually presents a unique opportunity to restructure management of the F-35 program. While many of the department’s major defense acquisition programs are being pushed down to the service level, the F-35 is the ideal candidate at this point in its life cycle to be a primary focus for the new undersecretary of defense (OUSD) for acquisition and sustainment (A&S), Ellen Lord, and whoever comes after her.
“The new OUSD (A&S) has an opportunity to introduce a flatter oversight structure that provides greater strategic direction, continuity and leadership for the program, while at the same time equally integrating the perspectives of the SAEs from both Military Departments,” the study says.
On the acquisition front, the current structure of reporting through the SAE of just one of the services impedes both departments from participating in strategy development and decision making, the report found. As the fleet expands, including both the Air Force and Navy SAEs in the chain of acquisition authority will be critical, it concludes.
To move to a service-centered structure, the study recommends implementing a “measured” restructure of the JPO in the near term. This will include establishing “leads” for each of the three variants—the Air Force F-35A, F-35B and Navy F-35C—inside the JPO who report to the program executive officer, as well as “service deputies” co-located with the JPO who report back to their respective departments. The Pentagon also should establish service-led fleet management offices (FMO), located at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center and Naval Air Systems Command, that report to their respective departments.
At the same time, the Air Force and Navy will evaluate disbanding their respective F-35 Integration Offices (IO), currently located in the Pentagon to support initial fielding of each variant. The services initially envisioned that the need for the IOs would diminish soon after reaching initial operating capability—the F-35B and F-35A already have completed this milestone, and the F-35C is set to do so in 2019.
The Pentagon also will conduct an audit of billet structure across the JPO. This could result in eliminating many legacy JPO positions: the audit should seek to “assess and align the skill mix of personnel across all JPO billets to meet the evolving needs of modernization, production and sustainment,” the report says.
These near-term measures set the stage for a lower-risk transition to the next step: merging the variant leads and FMOs to form two fully functioning, service-run program management offices (PMO) that report to a joint PEO.
The timing of the transition is not yet set, but should be based on the maturity and stability of the F-35 follow-on development effort, C2D2; achieving full-rate production, planned for April 2019; and improving sustainment, the report urges.
In the final stage, the department will disband the joint PEO and establish two service PEOs that will oversee the U.S. and international fleets over the remaining life of the program. The study team believes the transition could be completed as early as fiscal 2030-35, but the timing should be based on getting to peak F-35 production and the primary focus shifting to sustainment.
The transition will come with a price tag, though not a very large one given the cost of the overall F-35 program. The cost estimate is $552-596 million per year from fiscal 2020 to planned F-35 retirement in 2071, or $63-107 million above the cost to maintain the existing JPO structure.
The department determined that this cost was acceptable.
“The Study Team assessed that the increase in manpower, and associated PMA cost, for each of the alternatives to be a minor discriminator compared with the other assessment areas,” the report said.
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