Description
Organization: NAVAIR, PEO (T), PMA-265
Team Name: F/A-18 IPT
Related Acquisition Topic(s): Acquisition Practices Streamlining, Commercial Practices, Cycle Time Reduction (CTR), Financial Management, Integrated Product Teams (IPT), Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD), Partnering
Description:
The Super Hornet is the newest version of the combat-proven F/A-18 Hornet. Both the E (one seat) and F (two seat) models offer longer range, greater endurance, more payload-carrying ability, more powerful engines, increased carrier bring-back capability, enhanced survivability and growth potential to incorporate future systems and technologies to meet emerging threats.
Boeing has delivered the first twelve of sixty-two production model Super Hornets to the Navy on or ahead of contractual delivery schedule. The Navy plans to buy a minimum of 548 aircraft.
The F/A-18 Super Hornet Completes Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) The F/A-18E/F EMD program has demonstrated that acquisition can be more efficient, timely and responsive. On April 30, 1999, the Integrated Test Team, NAS Patuxent River, successfully completed EMD. Seven Super Hornets completed more than 15,000 test points, a total of 3,172 flights and 4,673 flight hours in less than three and a half years of flight testing on cost, on schedule and mishap free. These accomplishments are the first ever using a fully integrated Government/Industry team to share all of the program’s leadership responsibility, data and assets. The conventional approach would have the Contractor open the flight test envelope and collect data for presentation to the Navy. Then, the Navy would re-fly critical test points to verify the Contractor data. Instead, Contractor and Government planned and executed the test program together. The organization was practically seamless with the only difference in personnel being the color of their badges.
Our approach enabled the program to complete flight testing a year and a half sooner than more costly traditional methods. During our flight test the team cleared twenty-nine weapons configurations, compared with only two on the F/A-18A/B Hornet at the same stage of development. The flight test schedule was set at the beginning of EMD. Seven years later, the flight test concluded as originally planned with the aircraft certified ready for operational test!
An important achievement in 1999 was reducing life cycle cost for the Super Hornet via Multiyear procurement. The FY2000 Department of Defense Appropriations authorized the F/A-18E/F “Super Hornet” multiyear contract for aircraft procurement. The procurement is planned to start in FY00 and continue through FY04 for the production of 222 aircraft. The anticipated savings this offers the program are estimated at $700 million over the FYDP. This is the largest DOD multiyear acquisition ever. The flexibility and savings to taxpayers will be significant. The primary benefits multiyear procurement include are:
The contractor is able to maximize return on capital investments early by establishing a greater capital investment before first full rate lot, which will yield higher and longer-term returns over the five-year multiyear contract. This would not be possible with single year procurements.
Using multiyear in the first full rate lot allows for maximized cost reduction where higher learning curves are realized.
The contractor is able to enter longer-term agreements with his major vendors from the start of production, instead of entering single year procurements. The Program Office worked extremely hard over the last 15 months to award this contract and realize such significant savings for the taxpayer. This extreme effort required that the Program office ensure and prove that substantial savings would be realized over single year procurement, that the aircraft design and funding for the program were stable, cost estimates were accurate, and that approval of the program was in the best interest of National Security. The program met or exceeded all of these goals through hard work and true team cooperation. The F/A-18E/F program has always been below cost, ahead of schedule and under prescribed weight limits since its inception. It is the accumulation of many goals reached by individual teams within the F/A-18 Program Office, all their dedication, and drive that has made this program a model for acquisition programs of the future.
