Do they know what you wan't?
This is a big company problem that is not just something that hapens in the military.
A long time ago when I worked for a big airline based near London I went to the Farnbough air show, the trade show was very good with all types of new equipment on display.
One company was showing a small aircraft jack that used compressed air or a good old lever to jack the aircraft, the whole thing could be lifted by one man and put into the back of a landrover....... just what we needed for line in line engineering.
I remarked on what a good bit of kit this was to the young lady who was with me, this was overheard by the company rep and the young lady was wisked away by another company rep for "refreshments".
I was told that this jacking system had been shown to Mr xxxx at the company that I worked for and he said it was not what we wanted, it transpired that the guy who buys the equipment had never jacked an aircraft in his life and could not see that this small bit of kit would work and so he ordered much bigger and more costly jacks.
I managed to get the company to take a range of the jacks that they had for sale to the crew room and let the guys who do the work select the equipment that they had to work with.
This saved the company money on equipment perchace and countless man hours over the life of the jacks.
To my knowlage this is the only time that the guys on the "front line" had any input into equipment buying and it saved a lot of money.
The question I have is do the RAF have any "crew room" input when buying new kit?