Dr. Delores M. Etter looks for ways to burnish the Navy’s credibility on Capitol Hill

As assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, Dr. Delores M. Etter is responsible for naval programs budgeted at $51 billion, almost 40 percent of the Navy budget. These include successes like the Arleigh Burke class of destroyers, failures such as the recently canceled Advanced SEAL Delivery System, and future weapons like the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), a multimission platform intended to set new precedents for the Navy in acquisition strategies, manning and warfighting.

Etter prods the research and procurement hierarchies from the top, honing their cohesion and looking for ways to stretch the Navy’s dollars. She wants to bring more discipline and rigor to the service’s software development efforts and perhaps reduce its wide array of research and development programs.

In Etter’s view, the Navy in recent years has created a credibility gap on Capitol Hill, “because we haven’t been able to do things on cost and on schedule.” Improved performance will reverse that trend, she said, adding that the Navy’s reputation in acquisition management is riding on its ability to produce initial versions of the LCS at cost.

An engineer with a background in biometric signal processing, Etter was on the electrical engineering faculty of the U.S. Naval Academy. She has been deputy undersecretary of defense for Science and Technology, and a member of NATO’s Research and Technology Board and the Naval Research Advisory Committee.

In a recent interview with Editor in Chief Richard C. Barnard, Etter said a central element of the Navy’s future success in procurement will be to reduce the volatility in the acquisition process caused in part by managers and contractors who “are just way too optimistic” about their programs. Excerpts follow:

What are your top priorities for the next three years?

ETTER: The top priority is to make sure we get systems out there that will give our people a real edge in their mission. We have goals to make that happen. The first one — expedite global war on terrorism programs without compromising safety — recognizes that we are at war. We want to get things out quickly, whether it is body armor, armor for Humvees or things to counter improvised explosive devices. We’ve got to be sure we’re doing enough testing so that what we’re sending will do the mission over there.

I am also very concerned about the investment strategy for science and technology. It is a very small budget overall and sometimes those dollars get used for other things. Yet if we don’t pay attention to this investment, 10 to 15 years from now we’re not going to have all those great capabilities that today give our troops a technological edge. That’s a real important one for me.

We also are leading the acquisition component of the naval enterprise effort [to foster the adoption of disciplined cost-control processes throughout much of the Navy]. In the corporate world, it’s done with lots of interaction and collaboration among the various units. And that kind of effort is going on within the Navy.

One of our more important goals is to reduce the volatility of our acquisition programs. We have the most complex programs in the world. No wonder we have challenges doing them on time and on schedule. Changes in requirements, budget instability and schedule demands also affect volatility. And both contractors and program managers are just way too optimistic — particularly in our software programs. In many cases, software has overtaken hardware in terms of cost and complexity.

Have you seen cost overruns or instability in software programs?

ETTER: It’s a real challenge to do the software systems we’re doing today. They’re huge. We’re talking about millions of lines of code. We’ve developed a lot of things to help us design and debug hardware. There are computer-aided tools, testing procedures and techniques. We can do real-time testing of things.

Software is not nearly as far along that path. We really don’t have all the tools yet. We have a lot of organizations working on that; the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon is doing a great job.

What is the Navy doing to better manage its software programs?

ETTER: I don’t think there is one thing. It is a very complex area. We need better tools. We need to figure out how to do the architecture design better so we can reuse things. We’ll soon be sending a policy statement to contractors requiring them to demonstrate that their software developmental processes are disciplined and mature.

The Software Engineering Institute has developed a capability maturity model. It’s a thing that companies take classes in and get graded on. An evaluator comes in and determines the level of maturity of your process for designing software. We need to demand that of companies that do software for us.

Also, we have to have more people on our side that understand software — what kind of questions to ask and metrics to be used. So, I’m also going to be asking that in the next 18 months all of our program managers take a set of three courses from Defense Acquisition University. We’re working now to get that set up.

Do you have an assessment group for future process improvements?

ETTER: There are already groups like that within the Department of Defense. Within our offices, I have a subgroup that has come up with five areas they’re going to be working on in software. Working within the government and with people outside, they are coming up with a roadmap.

What are your real hopes for bringing more stability to the total naval acquisition picture? Other organizations, such as Congress, make changes to the budget and affect stability.

ETTER: I don’t think we have a lot of credibility right now because we haven’t been able to do things on cost and on schedule. Part of the rationale is that things are often out of our control. But sometimes the problems stem from things we have done, like changing weapon requirements. We need to demonstrate that we can do a credible job of estimating costs and budgets. I’m hoping that will put a little pressure on Congress to give us the stability we need in the budgets.

For example, are you going to be able to produce the LCS frame for $220 million, which is the goal for the fifth ship?

ETTER: I am very comfortable we’re going to be able to do that. The $220 million is in 2005 dollars. That’s important to remember.

LCS is a new program. It is a new type of ship. And those are the kinds of programs that often generate escalating costs.

ETTER: Right. There are lots of challenges anytime you do the first ship of a class. That is why it is important not to put cost caps on the first ship. Also, the cost cap does not include the LCS mission modules. They’re separate.

There is a lot of interest in the Navy in adding mission modules to the LCS. You could end up with 10 or 15 mission modules if you just keep saying yes.

ETTER: You could. But we’re not saying yes. We have mission modules for mine hunting, antisubmarine warfare and surface warfare. Those are the only three we’re working on. We need to get those finished and tested. But there are going to be a lot of ideas. Every time I talk to somebody about LCS we come up with a new one.

You and other senior officials have mentioned a fourth called the global war on terrorism mission module, correct?

ETTER: We are looking at how we would put that together. It’s really in concept development. That’s the only additional one that far along. There’s a lot of talk about others. I think a mission module for humanitarian aid makes a lot of sense.

You have also discussed an Army missile system called NLOS (Non-Line-of-Sight) for the LCS. Is that a real prospect or an experiment?

ETTER: That’s a real part of the capability. As you look at the mission modules, the ways you can use them to solve a problem become almost endless.

Is the Navy’s credibility in acquisition management riding on the LCS?

ETTER: I believe that. I do think it is a program where we have an opportunity to demonstrate [the Navy’s ability to control costs].

Two models of the LCS are being built. Are you going to buy both?

ETTER: We’re going to be doing a lot of testing. They’re different ships. There is no plan at this point to go to one model. We haven’t defined the strategy for the rest of the class. We may decide both of these ships are really great and they have different advantages.

Would two models be more costly than one?

ETTER: No, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Competition is wonderful. It keeps the costs down. It also keeps the companies looking at ways to use new technologies or production techniques to enable them to do their jobs quicker or less expensively.

There are some things that you can do to control costs even as the systems are getting into their second, third, fourth ship. For example, in the Virginia [attack submarine] program, we have a project called Cap-X. We’ve taken about $91 million and asked the builders for proposals on ways to build the boats faster or cheaper. If we like what they propose, we’ll fund half of it. We’ve had some real successes with that one.

Is the Navy running too many research and development programs and spreading itself too thin?

ETTER: Rear Adm. William Landay, the chief of naval research, is doing a strategic plan right now for the Office of Naval Research, and he is looking at precisely that topic. What are the capabilities we want and what things are we doing that are directly applicable to them? The intent is to focus on fewer programs. There is a sense that we ought to look at it.

You envision Landay’s report as a road map for the future?

ETTER: Exactly. But as you get into basic research, you do want to look pretty broadly. The whole idea of basic research is you don’t really know where the next good ideas are going to come from.

Can you get the brains you need out of the universities these days? Are the bright young people coming to work for the Navy or are they going out to Hollywood to do animation?

ETTER: Some are coming to work for the Navy, but it’s a challenge to get them. But the ones going to Hollywood to do modeling and simulation and stuff help us a lot. We’re very focused on trying to use as much commercial-off-the-shelf technology as we can. So the young folks that are going off to industry are great for us, too.