Mabus: 'Every Dollar We Spend Has to Count'

By PETER ATKINSON, Deputy Editor

As he had done in October to address energy usage and reliance concerns within the Navy and Marine Corps, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus laid out a five-point plan May 5 to improve the efficiency of the acquisition process for the services.

Addressing the Secretary of the Navy Luncheon at the Sea-Air-Space (SAS) Exposition, Mabus said the principles of the plan were:

• We have to clearly identify requirements.
• We have to raise the bar on performance.
• We have to rebuild the acquisition work force.
• We have to support the industrial base.
• We have to make every single dollar count.

"You'll notice that I said we have to do each one of these, these aren't goals, these are imperatives," he added. "These are have tos. ... In order to build the fleet that we need, the Navy and Marine Corps, our industry partners, we have to do all these things."

Acquisition and procurement reform were a common theme of the luncheon speakers at SAS, with both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Ashton B. Carter, undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics, emphasizing the need to closely examine naval plans, programs and platforms, and making procurement plans cost effective, efficient and realistic.

Mabus said he agreed with that line of thinking.

"We do have to re-examine everything that we do," he said. "Nothing can be taken for granted. We have to continually make sure that we have the right platforms to do the missions that we have been given, and we have to have the capability to explain, to defend, to tell the American people why we need what we are asking them to pay for.

"Let me be clear about something. On budget and on time is baseline, that's the standard. It's not a target from which we deviate. If we can't get together to make it on budget and on time as standard I'm not going to hesitate in this job to down select or cancel ineffective or increasing expensive programs. Every dollar we spend has to count, every dollar we spend has to be used efficiently and effectively."

Mabus said he realizes that the drumbeat for acquisition reform and excellence has been steady for many years.

"I can almost see and hear a collective shrug of shoulders," he said. "So why is now any different? Well the fiscal environment has changed and we're going to have to be serious about the acquisition process because if we're not we're not going to be able to build the fleet that we and America need."

Among the keys to the success of the five-point plan, Mabus said, are weighing cost vs. capability to ensure programs don't spin out of control like the VH-71 helicopter, rewarding managers for cost control, improving and promoting education among the acquisition personnel and expanding the work force, reforming the contracting process, encouraging competition and introducing a preferred provider program where "we're going to reward contractors with favorable contract terms and conditions and payment schedules in return for consistent and exemplary contract performance."

Mabus also emphasized that the stability of the industrial base "is absolutely central if we're going to be successful at acquisition excellence. It's important to us because the health of the industrial base directly affects our national security and contributes to our overall health of our economy. The health of the base has to be an important factor in our decision-making process."

He said he would be establishing an Industrial Base Council later to provide "an opportunity for us to stay more informed about industry and get more industry input regarding our plans. Industry has the right to expect certain things - specifically that we have strengthen designs before we start building things and that we don't change those designs in mid-course, that we stick to our shipbuilding intentions," adding that "we remain committed to building an average of 10 ships per year over the future years defense program."

Mabus began his remarks with a recap of the energy goals he outlined in October, noting that he thought it would be appropriate to ask where the strategy stood today.

"Are we on track to meet our goals? Are we meeting internal objectives that we have set? The short answer is yes, we are on track. In the past six months we've taken some very significant steps toward meeting those goals," Mabus said.

Along with the hybrid-electric drive powering the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island, the memorandum of understanding with the Department of Agriculture of bio-fuel research among other programs, he pointed to such successes as the recent flight of an F/A-18 Super Hornet powered by a 50-50 blend of aviation gas and a bio-fuel made from camelina as "one more step, and a very tangible one, toward a Great Green Fleet that we're beginning to build."