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The Air Force will take a smaller-is-better approach to replace outdated computer systems after a failed $1 billion attempt led to cancellation of the Expeditionary Combat Support System project and the loss of more than 600 jobs in the Dayton area, officials said.
An Air Force Materiel Command report examined contributing factors and root causes of the project failure and offered recommendations on how to proceed after criticism and a demand for answers from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base had authority over the project.
The development of computer software has been the “most troubled’ part of the Air Force’s acquisition program, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.
“I have watched the Air Force falter on these types of acquisitions over and over again,” Thompson said. “In general, the Air Force is good at buying planes, it’s good at buying munitions, it’s good at buying electronics,” but not computer software, he said.
“It’s pretty clear when a plane or a satellite is performing well, but it’s hard to judge the merits of different software solutions,” Thompson said. “…You can spend a billion dollars before you’ve realized you made a mistake.”
A costly cancellation
The Air Force canceled ECSS in November 2012 after concluding the project would need another $1 billion and meet only a fraction of objectives by 2020. Computer Sciences Corp., one of the contractors on the project, laid off about 500 employees in Beavercreek last year because of the cancellation. Wright-Patterson eliminated 115 jobs and reassigned 55 military and civilian workers because of the cutback.
The project attempted to use commercial-off-the shelf software, with some modifications, to replace more than 200 legacy systems. Computer Sciences Corp. was chosen as a system integrator using Oracle software selected for the project.
In the aftermath of the project’s downfall, Ed Gulick, an Air Force spokesman, said the cost to modernize existing software systems isn’t known. “The total cost to modernize these systems is still under analysis as we’ve just begun assessing the work to upgrade these systems after years of decay,” he said in an email Tuesday. The Air Force spent about $11 million on computer modernization within the past fiscal year.
The service branch plans to meet a 2017 deadline to enable its budgets to be audited, officials said. Robert C. Shofner, an Air Force program executive officer for business and enterprise systems, said in a released statement remediation is underway on aging computer systems to meet audit requirements.
The Air Force will take a four-stage incremental approach to improve existing systems, officials said.
U.S. Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and John McCain, R-Ariz., the ranking Republican on the committee, sent the Air Force a series of questions last year demanding answers to the “root causes” of the ECSS program failure, who would be held accountable and how the military would tie past contractor performance to future decisions on contract awards.
Gulick said in an email the “Air Force identified no misconduct or behavior warranting further investigation of Air Force personnel.”
An Air Force Acquisition Incident Review Team study reported six root causes and four contributing factors that led to the failure of the ECSS project, and made a series of recommendations.
The team of reviewers said some work on the project — it could not predict what percentage — could be reused as the basis for future work. “Expeditionary Combat Support System wasn’t the failure people think it was; it was the first step to truly understanding the enormous task the Air Force has ahead of itself,” the report said.
In an emailed statement Tuesday, CSC spokeman Marcel D. Goldstein said: “The overall report conclusion is consistent with our belief that the progress we had made, jointly with the Air Force, and the software we had delivered could be the foundation for the next effort to develop and deploy a logistics system for the Air Force.”
An Oracle spokesperson did not immediately respond Tuesday to requests for comment.
‘Delay, frustration, uncertainty’
In an executive summary of the report, Air Force reviewers called governance of the program “confusing and, at times ineffectual,” which “lacked coherent leadership guidance and coordination from process owners” and caused “delay, frustration, uncertainty and labor burden on the program office. This problem existed throughout the life of the Expeditionary Combat Support System and is not yet resolved.”
The team of reviewers said the program “suffered from instances where the wrong tool was selected from the ‘acquisition toolbox’ or the proper tool was selected but misapplied.”
It added the Air Force did not appear to understand the magnitude of the legacy system data and led to a request for proposals that did not meet the military’s needs.
Bid protests early in the project slowed progress, also, the report said.
Replacing older systems was complicated because some Air Force personnel feared the new system could mean the elimination of their jobs, the report said. The Air Force doesn’t know how many “home grown” computer business systems exist, but the report said the number was large.
The ECSS program had a high rate of personnel turnover. It counted six program managers in eight years, five program executive officers in six years, 10 different organizational constructs, and the logistics office had short-term and not permanent positions, the report said.
“The combination of these factors led to significant instability, uncertainty and churn, which served as a major distracting influence over the execution of the program,” reviewers said.
The report said the Air Force lacked transition and detailed execution plans. The Air Force provided hundreds of subject matter experts in the field, the report noted, who could not communicate a single vision to the system integrator on how the transition would occur.
The Air Force did not completely understand the architecture of the current and future software systems and tried to develop ECSS in an “unrealistic environment” that “did not mirror the reality of the operational environment.” Moreover, Air Force culture did not have universal buy in to the project, the report said.
Among a series of recommendations, reviewers suggested: Strengthening and expanding boards that oversee information technology and management of the project; considering “significant incentives” to complete planning work early; and handling more work in-house with military and civilian personnel instead of contracting work out.
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