The BAE Gravy Train

[iRaven]

From all of the MRA4 banter on the Forum I thought I'd do some investigation of costs from NAO reports and other press articles and found some shocking facts:

QEII Class CVF £1.8Bn overbudget and expected 1 year late so far (ISD 2016)

Nimrod MRA4 £800M overbudget and was expected 9 years late (never made it into service)

Type 45 £1.5Bn overbudget and 3 years late (ISD 2010)

ASTUTE Boats 1-3 £1.5Bn overbudget and 4 years late (ISD 2010)

AJT Hawk £30M underbudget but 1 year late (ISD 2010)

Typhoon £2.3Bn overbudget from Main Gate and 4.5 years late (ISD 2003) without full operational clearance – first able to sit QRA in 2007 (4 years later)

Harrier GR5 ISD 1989 without full operational clearance, unable Op GRANBY in 1991 (still no weapons clearance) – limited ops with very limited recce capability from 1992 for Op WARDEN. 25mm cannon never delivered throughout service life from GR5 to GR9. First decent capability delivered for Bosnia in 1995 some 6 years after ISD. Unquantifiable costs as UK pulled out of development program in 1975 and then rejoined once the US had done all the development – rejoining the program allegedly cost about £280M.

Tornado (ADV) F2 into service with concrete in nose for ballast for no RADAR (ISD 1984). RADAR finally delivered 4 years late and 60% overbudget. Tornado F2 found to be seriously lacking in medium-high level performance so Tornado F3 developed and delivered from 1985 – increased re-heat thrust and extra AIM-9L launchers. Unit cost per aircraft including R&D was estimated at £42M* each at 1979 prices!

* taken from Land-Based Air versus Carrier-Borne Air ? Real Costs and Achievements over 40 Years The Phoenix Think Tank (http://thephoenixthinktank.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/land-based-air-versus-carrier-borne-air-%E2%80%93-real-costs-and-achievements-over-40-years/)

Nimrod AEW - never entered service and rumoured to have cost between £1-5Bn.

Now I don't mind trying to support British Industry, but the above is taking the wee-wee if you ask me! When my pay is frozen, we're all staring redundancy in the face for yet another time (all to pay for the cost over runs in the equipment program over the past 30 years) and we're consistently accepting equipment into service that is quite frankly not up to scratch, when is "enough is enough".

Dr Fox, Mr Cameron, Mr Clegg or maybe even your opposition - if you or your advisors read these threads, please can you start investigating this horrific squandering of tax payer's cash and gradual raping of HMForces? I believe the MRA4 should become the catalyst for the time for this "Gravy Train" to stop.

iRaven

[Dengue_Dude]

Horrendous figures - yep undoubtedly.

BUT, how many of the specs were changed by MOD AFTER the contract was signed.

That, and an utterly ridiculous mentality behind Cost Plus contracts - there have got to have been some serious back-handers going on there.

And you reckon politicians are going to look into that? I don't think so, who do you think gets most of the shadow money?

Quite understand your anger though, but it doesn't do much good. You just end up with an unchanged situation and high blood pressure.

[Geehovah]

Interested to see the ISD for Typhoon

The original ISD for the jet was 1996 with one slip allowed! Remember the interim title of Eurofighter 2000?

Foxhunter radars were delivered 6 months after the F2s in 85. It took until 90 to fix it.

But don't get me wrong. I'm right with the thrust of the argument! And.... it's not just BAES. I've seen similar dismal performances from US contractors. Anyone else remember the single emitter pre flight message in a US RWR?

[Postman Plod]

Can't really blame BAE if they can get away with it - and its clear they can and have for decades!

If you want to blame someone, blame the incompetent foolish organisations and individuals who LET them get away with it, and almost encourage shoddy criminal procurement and contract management! THEY are the ones spending and wasting our money!

[green granite]

It was noticeable in the airborne weapons industry that, since most only did one thing, costs didn't get badly out of hand. If I remember correctly WE177 was completed more or less on time of around 5 years and within 10% of the original estimate.

As Dengue_Dude says it's the " Please design and build an air superiority fighter with 30mm cannon and A/A missile capability", 3 years later they say "Oh we now need it to be able to drop bombs and do ground attack" that causes a lot of the problems.

[iRaven]

Alright, if no politicians will touch this - how about a journo?

Headlines like "UK Defence Industry takes UK Taxpayer for nearly £10Bn over 30 years" should shift a few papers whilst everyone is being squeezed due to overspending...

[Ogre]

iRaven

At the risk of being banned or suspended for being too contentious, I think you are on a hiding to nothing. Yes the figures speak volumes, if you read them as just numbers. Once to take the time to understand the "why" behind the numbers you will see that it is not just a case of one company lining it's pockets at the expense of the country.

I do wish the seemingly never ending threads blaming industry for the state of the UK military would dry up. It's getting tedious

[ian176]

Headlines like "UK Defence Industry takes UK Taxpayer for nearly £10Bn over 30 years" should shift a few papers whilst everyone is being squeezed due to overspending...

Hang on a second - your headline doesn't have BAE SYSTEMS in it - surely you made a mistake?

[A and C]

That's not the half of it, other contractors are making a lot of money for doing very little.

I wish I could say more but it would remove the crums from my table.

[Molemot]

The obvious alternative is to "buy abroad"...meaning, in all likelihood, from the Americans. The trouble with this is that all the money spent is lost to the UK economy; at least, buying from national sources means that the money stays in the UK and gets disseminated as jobs, and can be reinvested. The industries concerned retain their capabilities and the skill set of their workers. Restricting the argument to the horrendous cost doesn't give the whole story...and remember the F-111 we were going to buy? Boeing's SST cost more than Concorde and all they got was a plywood mockup...

I agree that part of the problem is "moving goalposts"...and we surely need better contract supervision and purchasing control...but "state of the art" equipment is always going to be difficult to cost; things evolve as development progresses.

[Lima Juliet]

Surely there must be economical cut off to the decision not to "buy abroad" or "COTS". Here is a very simple suggestion:

Total cost of R&D + equipment cost + unemployment costs <= total COTS buy

For example, if we look at some assumptions for MRA4:

Cost of 2,000 workforce on dole (£12k pa) over 15 years = £360M
MRA4 R&D and delivery of 9 aircraft = £3,600M
Total £3,960M or £3.96Bn

Total cost of 9x P-8 Poseidon (at $220M each or £140M) is £1.26Bn

Now I know that we will get VAT back (now 20%) and also there are things like National Insurance, and host of other offsets - so let's assume that 50% of the £3.96Bn makes it back into the country's finances. Then the MRA4 buy will cost us £1.98Bn.

The difference in costs is then £1.98Bn for MRA4 and £1.26Bn for P-8 => P-8 COTS is still £720M cheaper.

Now what would would £720M buy over 15 years? Well that's £48M per year which means that buying COTS would buy us 1,600 extra Nurses or 1,350 extra school teachers - which would significantly offset those on the dole's jobs at the start of this model!!!

So far, the money argument on buying British and paying through the nose for it makes no sense to me...:ugh:

LJ

[Ivan Rogov]

LJ the P-8 wasn't an option until lots of money had been spent on MRA-4 and you also need to buy BAMS to really compare it, so a flawed example maybe?

Not that I don't agree with the thrust of the thread. If industry knew moving goal posts were the problem then it should have reformed the process. Equally the customer has been inept, basically we have opened our wallet and said take what you want.
It might be spin but I have seen many articles in the last few years of how US companies have strived to provided efficiencies, JDAM unit costs, SSN manufacture, M1 Abrams reconditioning. They still get loads of cash but they provide much more for the money.

[Lima Juliet]

Igan

Or we could have been wiser and bought 8x P-3C, spare parts, a flight simulator and other material at the price of 271 million euro - just like the Germans did in 2004-2005. OK, they were 20 years old, but LM did some upgrades (Capability Upgrade Program - CUP) to bring them up to scratch.

Or in 2007 - The U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin have finally settled issues over price and offset options, and are expected to soon sign a contract for 12x refurbished P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft for $1.3 billion, said sources in Taiwan.

We had the offer and we blew it 15 years ago...

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n18/JohnManson/P1010885.jpg
(Credit to Vick Van Guard for his picture)

[Dengue_Dude]

COTS = USA

I'm tasting willow in the back of my throat.

They already have too much power and influence over Little Britain.

THAT's one of the main reasons I back BAE. Inevitably they're influenced too, especially with ITAR, but 'we' are still capable of joining with European aerospace companies to go it without being controlled by Washington to the same extent.

However, the politicians would never allow that . . . they've rolled over again and are taking it up the bottom (probably reminiscent of 'old school days' what?)

"We must have a special relationship at all costs" . . . and boy does it.

[Lima Juliet]

"We must have a special relationship at all costs" . . . and boy does it.

Does it b0ll0cks. The SR is a very good thing for both sides.

THAT's one of the main reasons I back BAE.

If you do THAT at all costs, that's why HMForces are broke with more redundancies and a pile of yet to be shaped razor blades laying on the concrete at Woodford.

[Lima Juliet]

PS - the SR is allowing us to keep a seedcorn of maritime military personnel capability alive until we can sort out the friggin' mess that your beloved BAE have left us in!

[Dengue_Dude]

I had written out about half a page in reply, but I've erased it.

Think what you like, I can't be bothered to put the effort in.

OK, it's all BAE's fault. . . there, that'll make it all better.

[Phil_R]

I promised myself I wouldn't post this publicly, since it'll just come off as ****-stirring, but I promise it isn't.

As briefly as I can, then: UK defence budget is very roughly 1/10 of US defence budget. Adding up everything I interpreted to be a cargo or search-and-rescue helicopter, and I may have made mistakes doing this, the Americans have more than 2600 available, including things like Chinooks, Black Hawks, V-22s etc.

The UK active military list seems to include... well, let's say rather less than one tenth that number, probably not even one-twentieth that number, even overlooking the enormous number of smaller helicopters the US has available, but nonetheless much more cargo-capable than a Lynx. I pick transport helicopters simply because they're a political hot topic, but the numbers are just overwhelming in other roles as well.

Are we really paying more than twice as much as the Americans to buy, maintain, crew and fly aircraft?

[diginagain]

Perhaps 'economy of scale' comes into play here. We buy a product to fill a niche role, in limited numbers, whereas the Cousins build lots of airframes thereby spreading R&D costs over a greater production run.

[Geehovah]

Economy of scale is without doubt an issue. I remember a US colleague chuckling when I told him how many of our latest "state of the art EW system" we were buying. IIRC his reply was along the lines of that's about how many systems we order for our LRP (limited rate production) to get us through OT&E! He added that at the end of OT&E they would have expected just about to have ironed out the kinks.

The sad thing is that was in the days when we had aircraft fleets of (in some cases significantly) more than 100 aircraft. I guess we're not quite as well off nowadays...............

[Flugplatz]

Let's see now;
How well has the current British aircraft industry served us?

The first all-British large jet aircraft to be built was the Comet... and 60 years later the last all-British large jet aircraft to be built was.. er, .. the Comet! :sad:(MRA4) .. And in between came the BAC 1-11, Trident, VC10, BAe 146 and Concorde at the high water mark....

Sad days

Flug

[XV277]

Typhoon £2.3Bn overbudget from Main Gate and 4.5 years late (ISD 2003) without full operational clearance – first able to sit QRA in 2007 (4 years later)

Harrier GR5 ISD 1989 without full operational clearance, unable Op GRANBY in 1991 (still no weapons clearance) – limited ops with very limited recce capability from 1992 for Op WARDEN. 25mm cannon never delivered throughout service life from GR5 to GR9. First decent capability delivered for Bosnia in 1995 some 6 years after ISD. Unquantifiable costs as UK pulled out of development program in 1975 and then rejoined once the US had done all the development – rejoining the program allegedly cost about £280M.

Tornado (ADV) F2 into service with concrete in nose for ballast for no RADAR (ISD 1984). RADAR finally delivered 4 years late and 60% overbudget. Tornado F2 found to be seriously lacking in medium-high level performance so Tornado F3 developed and delivered from 1985 – increased re-heat thrust and extra AIM-9L launchers. Unit cost per aircraft including R&D was estimated at £42M* each at 1979 prices!

* taken from Land-Based Air versus Carrier-Borne Air ? Real Costs and Achievements over 40 Years The Phoenix Think Tank

Nimrod AEW - never entered service and rumoured to have cost between £1-5Bn.

No great fan of BAE, but...

Typhoon - hardly BAES problem, look at the history, a big finger can be pointed at the German Govt and their continual delay in order to pay for re-unification, and at the way in which the system was divided between the ordering countries (e.g. not giving the FBW development to the country/company with the most experience in developing those).

Harrier GR5 - illustrates the problem with adding uniquely British requirements to a foreign design. If we had bought AV-8B OTS, then it could have been in service much earlier. You can blame BAE, but they were taking Someone Else's Aeroplane and modifiying it.

Tornado F2 - as has been posted, radar was only 6 months late, and needed a lot of tweaks to get right, but at that point GEC wasn't part of BAE. F2/F3 was always part of the development plan since early in the ADV program.

Nimrod AEW - again, see GEC.....

[A and C]

Interesting............... A good friend of mine was working with GEC at the time of the AEW Nimrod program. His big gripe was that the RAF changed the spec each time GEC had the equipment sorted to the last spec, as for upgrading the equipment GEC found themselfs obstructed by BAe who were very slow to react to any of the changed requested by the RAF.

Looking from the outside IMO it looks like The RAF, BAe & GEC all pulling in different directions and blaming each other for the problems, you can't help thinking that the people paying the bill should have imposed better management................. but that would require a civil servant to take some responsability!

[ShortFatOne]

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09326sp.pdf

For those of you that can't be ar$ed, it's basically admission by the GAO in the USA that the average program over-run has risen to 22 months, the projected costs of the R & D phases are about 44% higher than budgeted for etc, etc, etc, etc.

[Lima Juliet]

Ref: GEC

GEC is the biggest part of the "SYSTEMS" portion of the company these days. Yes, they do have a chequered history of late delivery, for instance let's look at their Phoenix UAS:

The contract for Phoenix was placed in 1985 against an In Service Date (ISD) of 1989. This original ISD slipped continuously and, in March 1995, the Equipment Approvals Committee ordered an Agreed Program of Work (APW) to be established and a study into alternative systems. The study concluded that, although there were several UAV systems that came close to matching the requirement, none did so as closely as Phoenix. A major contract amendment was negotiated with GMAeS (GEC-Marconi Aerospace Systems) and, in September 1996, Ministerial approval was secured to return to contract against an ISD of December 1998. At the time of return to contract it was hoped to bring Phoenix into service in mid-1998, but some technical difficulties, together with the need for a comprehensive Safety Statement and a Military Aircraft Release, resulted in exact alignment with the endorsed ISD.

At least 10 years late and their first combat showing isn't exactly exemplar (from Hansard June 2000):

Mr. Duncan Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the purchase cost is of each of the Army's Phoenix UAVs; how many Phoenix UAVs were lost in operations during the Kosovo campaign

Mr. Spellar: The contract for Phoenix UAVs was awarded in 1985 on a firm price basis. The cost of the individual UAVs was £164,000 plus VAT, exclusive of design and development costs.

Ten Phoenix UAVs were lost or destroyed during operations in support of the Kosovo campaign in 1999. A further three UAVs have since been lost during operations in Kosovo in 2000.

I heard a rumour that over Basra the Royal Artillery lost 4 in 7 days and its nickname was the "bugg£r off!"; because it did just that!

So blaming it on a company that is now a part of the main company - surely that's even worse! Especially when the company that did the datalinks and control stations is now doing it for Mantis and Taranis (2nd time lucky?).

LJ

[Lima Juliet]

SFO

the average program over-run has risen to 22 months

That would be fantastic - please can you ask your ex Lords and Masters to try and work to that sort of timescale and things would be sooooo much better :ok:

LJ

[GIATT]

If you do THAT at all costs, that's why HMForces are broke with more redundancies and a pile of yet to be shaped razor blades laying on the concrete at Woodford.


So many opinions, so little knowledge:

You may make razor blades from aluminium alloys, but you are not going to sell many and you're repeat business forecasts will eventually be revealed for the fiction they always were. Please tell me you're not on a project team.

[Lima Juliet]

Please tell me you have heard of Titanium?

http://www.superdrug.com/content/ebiz/superdrug/invt/260460/260460_l.jpg

No, I don't "work" for DE&S or any PT.

LJ

PS. Normally questions end in a thing called a q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n m-a-r-k.

PPS. Three major titanium applications for aircraft building:

1.fabrication of items of complex space configuration:
- hatch and door edging where moisture is likely to be accumulated (high corrosion resistance of titanium is used)
- skins which are affected by engine combustion product flow, flame preventing fire safety-proof membranes (high temperature of melting and chemical inactivity of titanium is used)
- thin-walled lead pipes of air system (minimum thermal titanium extension ratio compared to all other metals is used)
- floor decking of the cargo cabin (high strength and hardness is used)
2.fabrication of designated high-loaded assemblies and units
- landing gear
- fastening elements (brackets) of the wing
- hydrocylinders
3.engine part manufacture

[RumPunch]

BAE, the RAF, the MOD will get away with yet again squandering billions of UK taxpayers money , most of which has lined BAEs pocket. Nobody really cares just like the same people who dont bat an eyelid as somebody who has just died in Afghanistan. People are more concerened for there own wellbeing never mind the forces. Its a no win no win situation and its the easiest target as it already become apparent to take from defence as they cant strike or do anything about it. Boils my blood :ugh:

[Blacksheep]

"UK Defence Industry takes UK Taxpayer for nearly £10Bn over 30 years" Wow! That's nearly two years' bonus for the Financial Services Industry! :eek:

[theloudone]

Soooo true, look at the ATTAC contract !!!!!!!!:ugh:

[eal401]

AJT Hawk £30M underbudget but 1 year late (ISD 2010)


Well, I can't let that one go. Perhaps you need to look at the wider picture, you might find cost and BAE is not the sole cause!

T.Mk.2 is to a certain extent in service, however, most of the current "delays" are around new facilities required - a GFX provision and nothing to do with BAE. (Well, apart from some design inputs that were taken onboard, considered and completely ignored!! Still, at least the student pilots will have HUGE classrooms! Who the hell cares about engineering support anyway!) I also know people who worked around the clock to ensure the support contract bid was cut in price to meet and exceed the MOD requirements placed on the company.

And Nimrod had it's problems as we know, but how many times did the MOD make demands on the support contract bid which were met, only for them to turn around and say "yes, that's good, now here's a lower figure to meet."

I am always amused when RAF types rage on about BAE and how cr*p they and their workforce are. I have worked here for quite a few years and have never, ever been more than a spit's distance from ex-RAF personnel, how does that keep happening?? To be fair though, some do actually acknowledge they have left the service and try and do a day's work.

Life is interesting the other side of the fence, especially faced with jet jockeys who share iRaven's prejudice and as a result will actually go out of their way to generate situations where they can point fingers at BAE for anything!

[Gaz ED]

The problem with the un-initiated spouting their personal opinions is a complete lack of knowledge as to how the "other side" works.

As a current employee of "Waste of Space", I have marvelled as to how a lack of direction from our customer, coupled with a lack of funds from HM Treasury, results in a fudging of the finished product.

I'm not saying BAE are perfect - far from it, but the reality that struck home to my good self when I left Aunty Bettys' Balloon Corps, was that, until recently, BAE always offered 3 options when it comes to up-grades. Guess which one was always authorised by our financial masters? Often , these decisions were made on a purely funding basis. The best engineering solution was more costly, but in the long run more cost-effective. Like paying for your car to have 2 minor services, instead of 1 major one.

When one was serving in HMF, I would gladly have throttled the "f*cking a*sehole" who decided to stick the RHWR crate in Zone 19. On reflection, the spec for Tonka was merely for RWR - BAE had to wedge it in there somehow. The F3 was a bit more refined, and not as soul-destroying to work on.

Remember -the enemy is the Treasury - not the RAF, not BAES (unless you're Beagle, of course, :rolleyes:, or eal401:yuk:).

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Remember -the enemy is the Treasury - not the RAF, not BAES

Much of that rings true from the MoD side of the "fence". I would add an extra enemy, though; MoD Centre. From my, limited by only 37 years, experience of Centre is that it tends to be packed with bright young things who want to make a name for themselves on their way up their personal career plan. Being highflyers, they often serve a dog watch before moving away from the consequences of their inovations and bold decisions.

[Blacksheep]

Hey-ho! I've made a career out of patching bodged acquisition decisions.

Go for the lowest bid and endure the higher life cycle cost. That's always the way whenever the show is run by bean counters. :hmm:

[tucumseh]

I recognise much of what Gaz Ed, GBZ and Blacksheep say. It is always interesting to read other peoples’ experiences.

MoD(PE) used to use “troubleshooters” on problematic programmes. I loved that job but they scrapped the concept in the mid-90s. I’m not sure they could resurrect it in the same way now, because a pre-requisite was to have managed (on avionics for example) about 80 or so projects in every discipline (radar, comms, nav etc) and in every project phase (concept > disposal). MoD is structured differently now and no longer requires such experience at any grade or rank. The downside was if the troubleshooter was successful bringing a programme back on track it could be a career wrecker; mainly because, as GBZ says, those who screwed up in the first place have been promoted and don’t like the bar being set higher than they achieved.

Thinking of the programmes I worked on in that capacity, the problems were not all caused by “beancounters” or selecting the lowest bid. They fell into two main categories.

First, selecting a high bid by a company with no track record, as a result of political lobbying or simple favouritism. (The former more prevalent on high cost programmes, the latter on lower). That usually means having to let a parallel contract with someone else to fix the problems as they arise. (Westland have helped fix untold programmes in this way). Pay twice in other words, which is quite common and redress is seldom sought because the blame lies with MoD. That isn’t Tuc moaning; it is a formal ruling by CDP and Ministers. The resultant waste is appalling.

Others arose from not understanding Intellectual Property Rights and the hidden costs and dependencies if you select a company who doesn’t own the IPR or is at least the Design Custodian. They bid low, not necessarily because they’re cheap, but because they simply don’t have the wherewithal to provide certain services – a simple example is up to date drawings or pubs. That is, the Tender is not a level playing field. They get the contract and promptly submit a Contract Change Proposal demanding MoD supply “Government Furnished Information/Services/Equipment”, which they must buy from the Design Authority. This is compounded by, using drawings again as a simple example, MoD not maintaining them as Secy of State mandates. (This is all directly related to Haddon-Cave). The inevitable result is delay, increased cost (but not an increase in the fair and reasonable cost of the actual requirement) and, very often, equipment being supplied at a completely wrong Build Standard. And, very often unsafe.

There are a myriad of reasons and, as stated above, it is too simplistic to bang on about BAeS and other companies. No-one is perfect, but most companies I’ve worked with, which must be many hundreds now, try their best. At a corporate level, MoD don’t!! Individuals try very hard, but soon run into the “raising the bar too high” problem. It is the culture that must change. Perhaps Bernard Gray is just the man..............

[F3sRBest]

theloudone

Soooo true, look at the ATTAC contract !!!!!!!!:ugh:

And what, EXACTLY, do you mean by that????

Has ANYONE in this forum heard of MoD profit rates?

[theloudone]

Not wishing to carry on with the BAE bashing, its not been the best run of contracts, and yes, i have had first hand experience of it !

[Cpt_Pugwash]

Tuc,
The concept was resurrected in the form of the Project Rehabilitation Unit (PRU) now part of PTG I think.
All will be well soon, KPMG are on board to move the procurement process into the upper quartile standard..:uhoh: and Mr Gray may be just the man to move the procurement organisation out into the commercial sector, the only recommendation of his report not accepted by MOD, but now he's in charge ......

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Its all part of the design.

Spy satellites and christ knows what GCHQ needs these days all cost billions more than the official budget line. This money comes from the defense budget in the form of massive cost overruns. Really. Why does adding a gun cost 200 million? Why does x y z cost a b c where the numbers are always very high?

I don't know.

But its been the same for decades, here in the USA and elsewhere. Its not changing despite promises to do so now decades-old.


So.


It must all be part of the design. There's money being spent on things which cannot be acknowledged and the cost is being put on public projects which makes them look exorbitant. Its the only logical conclusion for me.


WWW

[GrahamO]

My two pennyworth ...... its no one organisation that is at fault.

I recall (maybe an urban legend) that the Chairman of BAE in the late 90's / early noughties, told a Parliamentary committee that if MOD knew the true cost of what they had asked for, they would never be able to afford anything.

Sadly, as a country we are just rubbish at defining and purchasing things. This is not unique to defence as rail, transport, government are just as bad.

No real insight into why this may be, but just opinions.

Personally, I think it comes down to an overweening British desire to reinvent the wheel every time rather than make do and have 90% of what we want, now. Instead we try and beat the Americans capabilities with something that will only be available in a decades time, might not work and will cost billions more than the original estimate. This desire is not unique to the armed forces.

And then be obsolete when/if it is ever finished.

Is it any wonder that the Bowman system because known as Better Off With Map And Nokia :D

[Pontius Navigator]

Why does adding a gun cost 200 000 000?

Are bean counters so used to thinking in terms of 10^6 or ^9 or even ^12
that pennies never even enter in to it?

At the sharp end there it the accounting for every penny on subsistence etc - at what cost - and at the other does the company account to the MOD for its contract T&S?

Years ago now but during the Stingray procurement a Neddy arrived at the testing range without his briefcase. This was absolutely essential to the conduct of the trial. The briefcase was found, driven to Boscombe, flown in a Canberra to Kinloss and driven to the test range.

By the time the briefcase reached the range the trial was complete and the neddy had gone back to Boscombe.

Where did the cost of that little exercise fall? It should have fallen on someone's personal bank account.

[Northern Skeptic]

There seems to be a widespread malaise in the whole of the Aerospace Industry (or is it the economy in general?) and Customer Community, where despite masses of well meaning but futile effort being put into Project Management, and ever more complex processes and procedures, we are unable to break the death spiral of increasing costs with reducing capability.

This isn't just happening in the UK, as an example the F35 is also in serious trouble (see latest in Wired: Things Could Get Worse for Troubled Stealth Jet | Danger Room | Wired.com (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/things-could-get-worse-for-troubled-stealth-jet/) ). We could all quote other examples across many countries and organisations. Possibly the most significant common factor is the over-enthusiastic application of Business Management techniques, giving us the volatile mixture of top heavy organisations which have 8 coxes and 1 rower rather than 1 cox and 8 rowers, coupled with a naive and over-optimistic expectation of easy success.

I wish I could come up with a magic bullet, but change for the better can only start if there is recognision that there is a fundamental problem which needs to be addressed, rather than settling for cowardly conformity (or would that be called "Best Practice"?).

[Willard Whyte]

You may make razor blades from aluminium alloys, but you are not going to sell many and you're repeat business forecasts will eventually be revealed for the fiction they always were. Please tell me you're not on a project team.

You do know how anally retentive this sort of post makes people seem? I do hope you don't communicate this way in real life.

[Col_onHF]

I don't know how they do it, but the MoD (customer) seems always to have a habit for making it very difficult for things to progress easily. Some recent examples (15 yrs) we've seen have been:

wanting a JTIDS type terminal on a jet. original price & spec too much, so a new bid with 'features-lite' option sent. agreed, then 1/2 way through implenentation & testing a request for "can we have all the functions please? - we've decided we now can't do without it" aaarg. time and costs wasted.

trying to get a 25mm guun on a jet. over 10 years of fiddling and mincing trying to sort it and failing.... no reason ever given why someone wouldn't own up, or just cancel it, or use the 30mm older one that was fine, or buy the US one of the shelf. probably some "i can't admit we're wrong" problems in the system somewhere

upgraded engines, more thrust, better hot weather perf, trialled in 1988 or so, got on the jet finally in 2005 ish. and the type that really needed it, it was OSD just as they were working on how to get the engine into it...!

and others, but you get the idea.......... Imagine how you'd feel if you tried to build a Ford Focus for someone who asked for FWD one week, then RWD the next, then changed the spec from a hatchback to an estate the next...! Or even how you'd feel if when you asked to buy a focus, Ford said 'Give us 10,000quid and a couple of years and we'll have a prototype', then 2 yrs later they wanted another 10k, and then 2 yrs after that, you paid another 10k, and got a car that only had 1 door, and would only drive 10 miles, and only in daylight......... unless you paid another 10k to fix it..... :bored:

CHF

[Self Loading Freight]

A friend who was something senior (don't want to drop him in it) in Clansman radio production way back when tells me that one of the suppliers basically told the MOD to shove its contract after enduring something like a thousand mod revisions after the production line had started. No amount of money could compensate for the fact it was making the company impossible to run.

Mind you, he has plenty of war stories.

As for Bowman: has anyone written that story yet? I'd love to read it. If not, I'd love to write it!

R

[ian176]

Col onHF
upgraded engines, more thrust, better hot weather perf, trialled in 1988 or so, got on the jet finally in 2005 ish. and the type that really needed it, it was OSD just as they were working on how to get the engine into it...!

Jaguar?

[GrahamO]

In a similar vein, a well known 'mobile' company was asked to modify a working, existing system to, amongst other things, fit a UK security chip and refused point blank to do so.

When 'taken to task' by the MoD, it was pointed out face to face, that the dozen or so engineers who would mess around with a perfectly good product just for the MoD to buy a few hundred devices, were working on a mobile phone which would net a few hundred thousand units in sales, each with a higher gross and net margin than the units the MoD wanted. So no, it isn't something they wanted to do.

MoD had no answer.

Just as well, as the 'urgent' need for the system went away 12 months later:ugh:

A lot of the problems come from naivete..... in the definition of requirements, which have become hellishly complicated and frequently contradictory. Also, in my experience, there is a belief that where there are equally valid interpretations of a need, that the MoD have the correct interpretation and the contractors equally valid interpretation is flawed. However no commercial company signs a contract which requires psychic abilities to define anything.

MoD asks the contractor to grow a ton of apples.

The contractor plants the trees, grows the apples and delivers them.

The MoD points out they didn't want Golden Delicious apples but wanted Granny Smiths.

The contractor has to either graft GS onto a GD tree or start again.

The MoD hasn't got a leg (or branch) to stand on, and has to pay up for its poor definition.

[Pontius Navigator]

GO, quite. We let one contract where I admit we were uncertain want we wanted. To use your example we asked for Apples or Pears.

The winning contractor said that he would provided Apples or Pears.

His bid was compliant.

The contractor that said he would provide a crop from a suitable orchard managed to the highest horticulural standards was rejected as non-compliant. You get the drift?

[Engines]

Col On HF raised the example of the 25mm gun - a good example of how things go wrong, but possibly deserves a bit more detail.

Original 25mm Aden was developed from the 30mm design by RO and was not right - but accepted and paid for by the MoD.

Job was taken off RO and given to a small company who did a great job of fixing it - result (in well under 10 years) was the best 25mm cannon ever built - fast, accurate required no external power. The original 30mm shell was not up to the requirements for ground attack performance.

Problem - MoD had insisted that BAES design the pod and ammo feeds - ALL other gun teams design the gun and the pod. Result - jams and problems with spent links.

Project was cancelled mainly because of the RAF dogma that guns were inaccurate and of no potential use. This was in 1997. Right.

The 25mm failed due to MoD failure to use basic systems project management and lack of funds, but primarily because of user ignorance over what a modern gun could do.

Damn shame, actually.

Best Regards

Engines

[Jackonicko]

Job was taken off RO and given to a small company who did a great job of fixing it - result (in well under 10 years) was the best 25mm cannon ever built - fast, accurate required no external power.

Name the company, go on! They sound as though they deserve some applause.

[Sgt.Slabber]

J - you have a PM...

[F3sRBest]

theloudone

Not wishing to carry on with the BAE bashing, its not been the best run of contracts, and yes, i have had first hand experience of it

And your metric to compare it to is...........??? :)



GrahamO has it spot on!!! If you look at the constraints put on Defence Industry by Gov't they should be lucky anyone wants to do business at all with MoD if there are other equivalent busienss opportunities. Add on top of that the inability of MoD to sort it's requirements processes out........

[theloudone]

Having been at St Athan during the time when the Tornado was serviced there, and comparing it to that of what i have been involved with at Marham, St`s seemed that bit more organised, to say the least !
I know its all about saving cost, that i understand, but the way in which BAE have structured the management is not good.Whats the saying, too many chiefs and not enough indians.

[F3sRBest]

theloudone,

I too was at 'Saints' when Tornado was serviced there, and have involvement at Marham too. Yes, BAES management is different to what you would expect given an 'old fashioned' military chain of command-type structure, but I don't think it's as chaotic as you believe. Things were not always so rosy when the RAF did the whole job! And given how things have changed since then, I don't think the whole team (don't forget many of whom are still RAF!) are doing a bad job!

Clearly since this post tends to the view that BAES personnel are not all evil money grabbing swine with no conscience it will be duly ignred by the majority here in favour of the current sport of 'BAES are bad, RAF are brilliant but hard done by' prevelant in this part of PPRUNE!! :) (not a personal dig theloudone - you obviously have views based on experiences so fair enough!)

[theloudone]

I am certainly not digging at the RAF or the team there, i do agree, they do a good job, and things were not all that rosy as you put it. I dont think for one minute BAE staff are evil money grabbers, quite the opposite, i have had to survive on their pay.

However, not wishing to divert to far from this thread, BAE are contracted to "deliver" under this contract, and are paid well for it, yet still as the prime contractor and with all their experience, they seem to fall short.

If you run a contract similar to this within an airline these days, and i have been involved with such contracts, BAE would have lost the business by now, and after all, its a business.

[F3sRBest]

Then again, if you tried to setup a busienss with the level of 'customer-owned' dependencies (that subsequently fail!) you would be laughed off the Stock Exchange! BAES were put in this position by the circumstances the MoD faced. I won't go into this anymore to avoid thread drift, suffice to say I think we are looking at the same thing from slightly different angles! My own opinion (and I have seen from both sides!) is that it's not doing so badly..considering... but I do concede that in comparison with some of the slicker commercial (civilian) companies, there's a lot to learn - BAES and MoD both!

:)

[ShortFatOne]

I am no apologist for either BAES or MoD, they both have theirgood/bad points. If you look at what's happened to defence procurement over the last 10 years, with massive intrusion and meddling by the treasury, it's a surprise anything got delivered over that period.

On MRA4, the IPT had bought 21 aircraft's worth of IP spares (bulk buy = savings!), only for the then Chancellor (Darth Vader's Dad-Gordon Brown) to decide we had to pay VAT on those items ('cos they were just sat on a shelf not earning any money). Add to that the constant in-year cost saving drives of between 5-15% (oddly enough the savings the PT had to make were only notified after agreeing the contract targets for that year, unsurprisingly having agreed milestones and deliverables, we then had to go back to the Co and ask how we could cut stuff out to save money!), I reckon nearly £700mil of the £3.6Bn program cost ended up back with HMT.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Are you sure it was VAT and not that bloody nightmare called RAB? That great smoke and mirrors trick guaranteed to syphon money back to the Treasury; Resource Account Budget.

[Mend em]

In this instance SFO is correct, it was VAT. All down to production assets becoming spares assets. You're still correct about this being Treasury wooden dollars being used to reduce actual cash budgets.

[ShortFatOne]

Thanks MendEm, my memory is sometimes a little random but I was certain it was VAT. And it wasn't just spares etc, we had to find a significant chunk of VAT on the simulators!

Madness.

[Magic90]

I did the MRA4 manufacturer's course as a blue suiter back in 2000 - well that was a waist of time. I then worked on and off with BAE at various locations over the next 10 years. I can honestly say that the majority of them were really decent chaps and chapesses, HOWEVER, they always managed to drag the arse out of the job by constantly pushing everything to the right. Frustrating...oh yes! At one meeting I remonstrated about the test equipment they had sold us, that after 18 months still didn't work as advertised. Needless to say they went bleating to my boss who then ripped my arse out.

C'est la vie!

PS. 2 years after that meeting i understand the TE still fails to work and low and behold - the warrantee has run out...never mind the MOD will pick up the over inflated bill.

Soap box away!! :ugh: