Headline today:

Pentagon Accelerates Savings Push
The Wall Street Journal    09/15/2010
Author: Nathan Hodge
(Copyright (c) 2010, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

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Gates had better take a hard look inside the Pentagon.  

First, he can start by killing personal agendas amongst every one at the O-6 rank and up.  

Second, they had better overhaul the cost accounting process.  Once, no one really knew what a project cost.  Now I'll willing to bet that no on knows the cost of the cost and schedule accounting.

Third, the fascination with "systems engineering" is soaking up budget like I've never seen.  At first, it was a convenience that relieved the real engineering staff from the task of producing a pile of useless and redundant reports that no one used.  Now it has turned into a monster.  The job I worked on before this one had 33000 hours budgeted to systems engineering and 2000 hours to structural integrity spread over 5 years.  That falls squarely into the category of  too much red tape about the red tape, and is unconscionable.  I worked on drafts of three reports under that systems budget for which the customer could not produce examples from prior programs and couldn't explain the purpose of the reports except to nod their heads in agreement that the content was either redundant or excessively detailed (or pedantic).  What they got was just enough to check off a box on a list written in the 1990's.  ["Systems Engineering" has nothing to do with the engineering of the subsystems in a machine, it's a paperwork exercise.]

The contractors had better get smart about writing exactly what will be provided by a contract.  The Pentagon is spoiled.  Every project is overburdened by Defense personnel looking over the shoulders of the engineering staff at details they don't understand and aren't qualified to assess.  They know whether a box appears to be checked, and that's all.  The problem with this oversight and interference is that it generates work that was never in the bids.  There's some merit to giving the customer a little service in special cases, but Defense is a bad customer and abuses the good will available.  The smart contractors that survive will learn to say, "NO.  That is not a contractual requirement.  Submit a RFP for an estimate of the cost of the work desired".  I have worked on exactly one contract where the management stood their ground and drew a line between the cost of good will and work that was off the reservation.  The government either backed down because they understood that they were getting everything they needed anyway, or sent more money.  It was a good balance that enhanced a successful project.


As for the machining process, once again the article doesn't tell us much about exactly what these three companies will do.  So here it is - the process uses cryogenic cooling of the machine tool to improve life by lower temps at the cutter interface.  That also means the rate of material removal can increase.  The working fluid is probably nitrogen since it's cheap and not likely to stir up the tree huggers.

Lots of these new technologies get installed at a shop here and there, and most of them never expand into wide spread use for one reason or another.  I worked on a project one time that had been sold as "using high speed machining".  One day after a visit from the CEO he asked why we weren't using high speed machining for all of our parts.  The answer is simple, schedules can't be met if the small number of machines available were used for all of the parts needed in a project.  Some "technologies" re-emerge every 10 to 20 years.  Right now we're about due for another round of the latest and greatest iteration of aluminum-lithium alloys with lots of great properties, such as density lower and strength at least no worse than conventional aluminum alloys, and corrosion resistance not a bit better than it was in 1958.  I sized up a trial part from an aluminum alloy with lots of iron that extended the service temperature range back in the 80's.  I suppose it's still flying around on a couple of Harriers, but that's the only non-prototype application ever used for that alloy as far as I know.  Want to make a cool titanium matrix silicon carbide fiber part?  Let me know when you find a supplier of silicon carbide fibers.

However, I'll have to say this cryo cooling strategy is probably a good step.  It looks easy enough to implement and if it works, it will take off.  If it's a dog, it will remain the darling of a few researchers in college labs.