11.3 Introduction

This section will use commercial (Ford Motor Company) and DOD (V-22 Osprey) examples to illustrate the many transition to production considerations that are addressed in this document.

Henry Ford produced the first automobile that the average person could afford and could maintain.  The first Model T was introduced in 1908.  However his most famous innovation, the "moving assembly line," was not introduced until 1913.  It took Ford five years to put into place many innovations that allowed for the moving assembly line to work and transition to a high rate production.  Here a few of those innovations:

• Stable design made investments in expensive tooling and equipment a reasonable business decision.
• Interchangeable parts made assembly much easier.
• Commonality limited the types and amounts of parts and tools needed to assemble the final product.
• Standard measurement system made the gauging and calibration a standard practice and allowed the development of the interchangeable part.
• Factory floor planning and layout helped lead to not only the moving assembly line but to the interchangeable worker.

In craft production, the old way of producing automobiles, each part was created by an individual craftsman. Each craftsman used his own tools to manufacture his part of the production process. Once parts were created, the first piece and the second piece were put together with the craftsman filing and making adjustments until the pieces fit together perfectly. Then the third piece was added and adjusted accordingly, and so on. Then when the parts were fired to increase hardness they often warped and the part had to be reworked again to regain its original shape. The biggest problem was that each piece was made by a craftsman using a different gauge so there was no uniformity.  The end result was a mere approximation of the original intended dimensions and no two vehicles were exactly the same.

Ford achieved interchangeability by controlling tooling and establishing a standard measurement system. Ford took away the individual tools the craftsmen carried and replaced them with Ford owned and controlled tools that were then put into a calibration program to ensure standardization.  Taken together – interchange-ability, simplicity of design, and ease of attachment - Ford was able to eliminate the skilled fitters and craftsmen who had always formed the bulk of the labor force.

Ford's moving assembly had the worker remaining in one spot and the product, components and tools coming to the worker. This created the unskilled worker who no longer needed to understand the whole production process but merely needed to be able to attach two nuts to two bolts on every car that came by all day long.  Ford noted that "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."  The genius behind this statement is that Ford paid so close attention to the production process that he knew that "black paint" dried faster than any other color. 

Today's weapon systems are much more complex than the Model T.  The management of a major weapon system from development through production is also much more complex and requires the effective administration and coordination of many functions and activities to include:

• Contracting to write the acquisition strategy and contracting documents.
• Budget and Finance to accomplish the cost estimates and work budgets and funding issues.
• Systems Engineering to guide the design and development process.
• Test and Evaluation to assess the product to ensure it meets the users requirements.
• Manufacturing and Quality Assurance to build the product and perform the necessary quality functions.
• Logistics to ensure that the product performs as needed, when needed and for as long as it is needed and at an affordable cost.
• Software Engineering and Management to guide the design and development of the software that is often embedded into the end item.

These functions and activities should be effectively exercised throughout the life cycle of any weapon system acquisition program.  But what does that really mean to exercise functions that can support the transition from development to production.  This chapter will use the V-22 Osprey program to further discuss transition to production issues and challenges.

The V-22 Osprey began with a requirement in 1980 when a mission to rescue 52 Americans being held hostage in Iran, failed.  Operation Eagle Claw called for eight RH-53D helicopters to fly from the USS Nimitz, stationed in the Arabian Sea, to a remote airstrip in Eastern Iran called Desert One where they were to meet up with other aircraft.  However, two of the eight helicopters did not make it to Desert One.  A third RH-53D had a secondary hydraulic system failure leaving only five helicopters when the mission called for six.  A decision was made to abort the mission.   What the U.S. needed was an aircraft that could take off and land on a short airfield and fly undetected over a long distance.  A solution was about to present itself.  The Secretary of the Navy at that time was John Lehman, and while at the 1981 Paris Air Show he was so favorably impressed with the XV-15, that he directed the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) to consider the XV-15 as a replacement for the H-46 helicopters.  Lehman's vision was to replace the aging helicopters with a tiltrotor aircraft.  But that vision took a long time coming to fruition and had several transition issues in question:

• "Did it come in on time?" This had several different answers.  The original acquisition time was 117 months, as of 2008 that time grew to 295 months, and its development time was 27 years!  According to the timeline below, the V-22 missed its original planned IOC of 1992, and a second IOC of 2001, finally making IOC in 2007.
• "Did it come in on cost?" The answer is no.  The original unit cost was estimated at $39M and the final estimate comes in at $106M and the program has been re-baselined eight times.
• "Did the warfighter get what they asked for?" Again the answer is no.  The cost was so high that the number of production units was cut from 913 to 458 units.

Figure 11- 2  V-22 Osprey Timeline

The V-22 Osprey transition to production was complicated by several program issues:

• There were challenging technologies to develop and insert:
  • Fly-by-wire digital controls;
  • Triple redundant hydraulic system;
  • Composite fuselage structure with wire laminate for lightening strike protection; and
  • Advanced tilt-rotors with lights in wing tips and de-icing blankets built into the rotors.
• The program structure was complex:
  • Joint service program, each service with some different requirements;
  • Conflicting service requirements (Army dropped out of the program early to support a helicopter program); and
  • Conflicting political climate (some groups supported the program others fought it).
• Flawed Program Management approach:
  • The first program manager came fresh out of the cockpit with only the Defense Systems Management College Program Managers Course under his belt and no PM experience; 
  • The Acquisition Strategy included a high level of concurrent development and production to meet the Marines Corps' initial operating capability (IOC) date of fiscal year 1999; and
  • The Secretary of the Navy decided on a fixed-price incentive contract in 1985 despite the high level or risks on a development program.