An Assessment of Early Competitive Prototyping for Major Defense Acquisition Programs

Abstract

On May 22, 2009, the President signed into law the Weapon System Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 (WSARA). An important feature of WSARA is the requirement for all Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs) to conduct competitive prototyping prior to the Milestone B development decision. These prototypes must be demonstrated in a relevant environment to provide the milestone decision authority (MDA) with an assessment of their level of technology maturity. Competitive prototyping in this early phase can also identify program risk and help the MDA decide if there is a good match between the customer's needs and the available resource technology, design, time, and funding. However, if the MDA determines that there is little or no benefit, competitive prototyping can be waived. The rationale behind such a waiver must be provided to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The WSARA competitive prototyping requirement has now been in effect for nearly seven years. There is a considerable amount of data on the costs and benefits of early competitive prototyping efforts. In addition, the GAO has published numerous opinions regarding MDA waivers of competitive prototyping. This research analyzes MDAP data from the 2013, 2014, and 2015 Annual Reports on the Performance of the Defense Acquisition System, the Defense Acquisition Management Information Retrieval (DAMIR), Budget Exhibits that accompany the President's annual budget request, the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), and the GAO. This research finds that early competitive prototyping has received only partial implementation for pre-MDAP and MDAP programs. However, when implemented, early competitive prototyping has reduced Program Acquisition Unit Cost (PAUC) and has reduced technology risk.