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For nearly 60 years, the Department of Defense (DoD) has been engaged in a continuous process of self-assessment to identify and improve the way it acquires weapons systems. Frequent major acquisition reform initiatives have responded to concerns that acquisition costs are too high, that DoD is buying the wrong things, or that the process is too slow. The need to review the process and to institute change has become very obvious to the acquisition community. The House and Senate Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Authorization Committee Reports addressed concerns about the ability of DoD's Acquisition System to develop and deliver required capabilities when needed and at predictable costs. The reports further stated that addressing symptoms one program or one process at a time is unlikely to result in substantial improvement. Both Congress and DoD senior leadership have lost confidence in the capability of the Acquisition System to determine what needs to be procured, or to predict with any degree of accuracy what things will cost, when they will be delivered, or how they will perform. On June 7, 2005, then Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England authorized a sweeping and integrated assessment to consider every aspect of acquisition, giving rise to the Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Project. The centerpiece of this project is a panel governed by the tenets of the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (Public Law 92-463). The panel concluded that the problems are deeply imbedded in many of the acquisition management processes that are used in the DoD and not just the traditional procurement processes. DoD needs a radical approach to improvements in its Acquisition System, and it needs to adapt these improvements to the new security environment of the 21st century. The panel's acquisition performance assessment process and conclusions are outlined in this report., The original document contains color images.

In July 2001, the Secretary of the Navy asked the Center for Naval Analyses to evaluate alternative methods for training naval forces after the Vieques Island, Puerto Rico training range closes in May 2003, and also to evaluate long-term naval force training options for ensuring that future naval forces are well prepared for real-world operations. We approached this task by organizing a Senior Study Group composed of retired, senior military officers and former Defense officials to provide an operational and policy perspective to the training options, and an Analysis Team to evaluate training requirements and alternatives. Admiral Leighton Smith, USN, retired, and General Charles Wilhelm, USMC, retired, co-chaired the Senior Study Group. Dr. Alan Brown led the Analysis Team. Members of the Senior Study Group and the Analysis Team are named on the cover of this Report. In general, the findings of the Analysis Team are consistent with the operational experience and intuition of the Senior Study Group. This report summarizes the results of the analysis and the key findings of the Study Group. The conclusions of the Senior Study Group are described in full in an appendix. In carrying out our tasks, we examined the combat training environments of all military services. We evaluated critical aspects of Navy and Marine training, including training methods for key warfare areas, and range support needs. We attempted to predict needs for future training environments, including the use of simulations in such environments. We evaluated two very important concepts that are part of combat training: emotional conditioning the process of conditioning individuals to perform their functions in circumstances of great personal danger; and lethal responsibility the training of the people who make decisions that result immediately in lethal outcomes. We identified for each naval warfare area the people (jobs) responsible for such lethal decisions and the training they require.

This study develops a General Prediction Method (GPM) for estimating the human error rate in a data transcription system. It also indicates the nature of the relationships between error rate and the significant determinants, and it specifies the relative importance of these relationships. Correlation and stepwise regression analyses are performed on data gathered in previous laboratory experiments in obtaining the desired results. The following factors are investigated for their influence on human error rate: Operator Age, Education, and Occupation; Transcription Methods; Code Length, Content, Mix, and Repetition; Code Blocking and Order; Grouping within Codes; Response Format; and Duration of Work Period. The following factors have the greatest influence: Code Length, Content, Transcription Method, and Repetition. The following have less influence: Sex, Age, Occupation, Duration of Work Period, Response Format, Education, Grouping within Codes, Code Blocking and Order. It is recommended that the GPM be validated by application to operational data systems and refinement made in operational settings where those factors found relatively unimportant in this study would be eliminated enabling easier application of the GPM. (Author)