Consolidated List of Sources on Defense Acquisition, 1945-2003, prepared by Dr. J. Ronald Fox

SECTION 1-2

Section I
SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON DEFENSE ACQUISITION
arranged by the years covered in DAHP VOLUME I – 1945 to 1958

1958, July 17 and 18, "Study of the Armed Services Procurement Regulations and Departmental Implementation Thereto," Hearings before the Subcommittee for Special Investigations of the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office). [The hearings contain testimony from representatives of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.  These pages contain statements from the Commandant of the U.S. Army Logistics Management Center, Ft. Lee, VA; and the Chief of Procurement Policy Division, Office of Deputy Chief of Staff, Materiel, Headquarters, USAF.  Their testimony indicates that the Advanced Air Force Pricing School instructors consisted of staff from Harbridge House, Inc in Boston, MA, faculty from the Harvard Business School, and faculty from the School of Business Administration, University of California at Los Angeles. (44 pages)]

Section II
SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON DEFENSE ACQUISITION
arranged by the years covered in DAHP VOLUME II – 1959 to 1968

1959, October 14, "Predictability of the Costs, Time, and Success of Development,"
            A. W. Marshall and W. H. Meckling, Economics Division, The RAND Corporation Report #P-1821.  [In this paper, Marshall and Meckling from RAND Corporation present the results of some recent research into the extent and nature of the uncertainty in new developments. The proposition that development of new products or processes is an uncertain business is generally accepted without serious dispute.  But when it comes to translating that generality into uncertainties associated with particular current development proposals; or when it comes to discussing the implications of uncertainty for the way development projects should be managed, the apparent agreement in point of view is often quickly dissipated.  To a large extent the differences which arise do so over the question of the "extent" of the uncertainty in development – over questions such as, "Are estimates of cost of production likely to be off by 25 percent or by 300 percent. (24 pages)]

*1961, "The Budget Business," Directorate of Budget, Comptroller, Headquarters, USAF.  [The document presents a clear description of the DoD budget process from the perspective of the Air Force Directorate of Budget, complete with an index; prepared for a non-technical audience. (43 pages)]

1962, Planning and Forecasting in the Defense Industries,J. A. Stockfisch, editor(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc).  [The document contains 13 articles, with the following eight most closely related to defense acquisition: The Scope and Nature of the Defense Sector of the U.S. Economy; Defense Budgets and the Federal Budgetary Process; Aspects of Corporate Planning in the Defense Industry; The Impact of Military Procurement on American Industry; Some Emerging Developments in the Airframe Industry; Interaction of the Defense Program and the Electronics Industry; How to Forecast Defense Expenditures; National Security Expenditures, 1960-1970. (292 pages)]

1962, "The PERT/COST System, Volume One: System Design," prepared by Management Systems Corporation, R. Fox project manager, under contract with the U.S. Navy Special Projects Office (Polaris). [The report describes the design of the PERT/COST System for schedule and cost planning and control of large engineering development programs. (119 pages)]

*1962, The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis, Merton J. Peck and Frederic M. Scherer, Boston: Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.  [A pioneer study of defense acquisition dealing with (1) The Nature of the Acquisition Process; (2) The Structure and Dynamics of the Weapons Industry; and (3) The Execution of Weapons Programs. (736 pages)]

1962, September 4-7, Science, Technology, and Management, edited by Fremont E. Kast and James E. Rosenzweig.  (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc).  [The book contains the Proceedings of the National Advanced-Technology Management Conference in Seattle, Washington.  The conference report includes the remarks of twenty-three speakers including: Wernher von Braun; Edward Teller; General Bernard Shriever, USAF; Simon Ramo; Vice Admiral W. D. Raborn, Jr, USN; Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Hitch; DDR&E Harold Brown; and General F. S. Besson, US Army. (368 pages)]

1963, Project Management, John Stanley Baumgartner, (Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc). [The book contains a basic description of project management techniques. Topics discussed in the book include: The Project Manager; Planning; The Elements of Control; Subcontracts; Building the Project Team; Fiscal management and Cost Control; and The Project Manager and the Customer. (185 pages)]

1963, September, "The Control of Schedules and Costs in Major Weapon and Space Programs," J. Ronald Fox, The Armed Forces Comptroller Journal, Volume VIII—No. 3, pp. 3-13.  [The article describes objectives and uses of the PERT COST system from the standpoint of financial management of defense acquisition programs.
            (11 pages)]

1963, October, "Common Problems Associated with the Implementation and Operation of the PERT Cost System," J. Ronald Fox for the Special Projects Office, Department of the Navy.  [The document describes key features of the PERT Cost System, PERT Cost implementation problems, and PERT Cost operational problems. (43 pages)]

*1964, The Weapons Acquisition Process: Economic Incentives, Frederic M. Scherer, Boston: Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.  [This is a path-breaking study of defense acquisition, (The book is the second volume of the Weapons Acquisition Research Project at Harvard.  The volume includes three sections:  I. Competitive Incentives; II. Contractual Incentives; and III. Incentives and Government Policy. (447 pages)]

1964, Buying Aircraft: Materiel Procurement for the Army Air Forces,Irving Brinton Holley, Jr. (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History). [An interesting, well researched history of buying aircraft during the years prior to 1947. (641 pages)]

*1965, Decision-Making for Defense, Charles J. Hitch (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press). [The book contains four Gaither Memorial Lectures established by RAND Corporation. The lectures are arranged by the Graduate School of Business Administration and the Center for Research in Management Science at the University of California, Berkeley.  The four lectures in this series are entitled: I. 1789-1960; II. Planning—Programming—Budgeting; III. Cost-Effectiveness; and IV. Retrospect and Prospect. (83 pages)]

1965, Program Budgeting,David Novick, Editor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).  [This book contains a collection of 12 articles organized in three groupings: Part I—Government Decision Making and the Program Budget; Part II—Actual and Potential Applications of the Program Budget Idea; and Part III—Implementation and Operation.  At the time of publication, David Novick was head of the Cost Analysis Department at RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, CA. (380 pages)]

*1965, May 13.  "Problem Areas in Air Force Weapons Systems Management."  R. Fox report to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force. [The report describes specific acquisition management problems and recommendations pertaining to contract changes, personnel turnover in program offices, qualifications of program office personnel, cost estimating, cost control, controlling indirect costs, increasing contractor costs, funds control, unclear program requirements, and special study requests imposed on program offices. (60 pages)]

1966, "TFX (A), (B), (C), (D) and F-111 Chronology," Leon Booth, Robert Chepolis, and George Howard (all Air Force captains), Harvard Business School technical note and cases.  [The cases and notes on the F-111 acquisition program vary in length from 2 to 13 pages.]

*1967, "The F-237 Program," Lt. Colonel Richard Lorette, USAF, Harvard Business School case.  [The case is a composite of interviews with program officers from a variety of DoD development and production programs.  It, therefore, does not present the experience of any single program but reflects typical problems arising in aerospace and defense acquisition programs. (14 pages)]

1968, Systems Analysis and Project Management, David I. Cleland and William R. King (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company). [The book contains five sections: I. Basic Systems Concepts; II. Systems Approaches in Planning and Implementation; III. Systems Analysis; IV. Project Management; and V. Organizational Support for Systems-Oriented Management. (315 pages)]

1968, July.  "A Reappraisal of Incentive Contracting Experience," by Irving N. Fisher, A Rand Corporation Report prepared for the United States Air Force Project Rand.  [The report is excellent.  It includes a powerful critique of incentive contracts describing how the average negotiated profit rate goes up as the risk born by a contractor increases.  That is, profit increases successively for CPFF, FPR, and FPI contracts as the risk is shifted more to the contractor.  The report is based on an analysis of 948 Air Force contracts. (50 pages)]

*1968, July, "Improving the Effectiveness of Incentive Contracting," I. N. Fisher, Rand Report P-3870, The RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California. [The report includes five sections: (1) Introduction; (2) Mechanics of Incentive Contracts; (3) Increasing the Effectiveness of Incentive Contracts; (4) Conclusions; and (5) Appendix—Rationale for Higher Target Costs with Incentive Contracts.  The report contains the persuasive conclusion that it is unlikely that incentive contracts have had any real effect on costs or efficiency. (16 pages)]