COAST GUARD SAYS DEEPWATER IS DEAD
- (Sidebar- The US GAO found that of the 40 former high-ranking Coast Guard officials who left the service from 2005 through 2009, 22 have been compensated by Coast Guard contractors.)
Deepwater RIP – A Leadership Perspective
by Rear Adm. Jake Korn, Assistant Commandant for Acquisition
— Published Dec. 8, 2011
The Coast Guard Cutter Stratton, the newest cutter in the fleet, transiting the Chesapeake Bay Oct. 31.View and download this image from the Coast Guard Visual Information Gallery.
The time has come for the U.S. Coast Guard to officially drop the Deepwater name from any reference to our acquisition portfolio. The active period of performance for the last line item under the Integrated Coast Guard Systems contract ends in January, and there will be no further work initiated.
The Coast Guard has long since taken over as the lead systems integrator for all acquisition projects, including those which started under the Deepwater umbrella. The Coast Guard, as a whole, has greatly improved our acquisition governance processes and exponentially increased the number of certified acquisition professionals across many disciplines and directorates.
This year, the Government Accountability Office retired Deepwater from the title of its annual audit. The new title is “Management and Oversight of Coast Guard Recapitalization.”
The MH-65D Dolphin’s first flight. (Short Range Recovery helicopter)
Deepwater was an innovative idea and in line with conventional wisdom at the time. Moreover, the Coast Guard found ourselves in a position where all our surface assets were in need of recapitalization at nearly the same time, and we needed to elucidate the urgency of this problem. Deepwater was the solution.
However, due to some well-publicized problems in execution, the Deepwater title now has negative connotations. In the end, the general consensus is that we ceded too much responsibility to the contractor, including some functions that should have been reserved for government employees. However, there is a great deal of good that has emerged from this endeavor. We have learned many hard lessons, fostered systems thinking, built our acquisition expertise and are collectively smarter as a service. Chances are good that you, the reader, have one or more acquisition certifications.
An HC-130J Super Hercules (Long Range Surveillance aircraft)
So why should we care that Deepwater has ended? In short, the collection of acquisitions formerly known as Deepwater was not inclusive of all service acquisition needs and, more importantly, had an artificial end date associated with it. This end date implied that the Coast Guard would be recapitalized, no further Acquisition Construction and Improvement funding would be needed, and all would be well. Of course, we would continue to need an adequate annual stream of funding to avoid getting into the familiar position of outdated assets and infrastructure that mandated the exceptional creativity of a program like Deepwater.
An HC-144A Ocean Sentry (Maritime Patrol Aircraft)
Before shoveling the last spade of dirt on Deepwater, let’s take stock of our current acquisition projects with a genesis in Deepwater. Depending on how progress is measured, we are probably somewhere between 25 to 50 percent complete. Much of the planning investment and upfront work has been completed across all projects. The Offshore Patrol Cutter, the last major shipbuilding project, is nearly through the analyze/select phase of the acquisition process and is a beehive of activity.
We have delivered about 50 percent of our planned aviation acquisitions and upgrades. Six HC-130Js are in service, with funding in hand for two more. Additionally, 12 HC-144As have been delivered with three more on order. The MH-60T and MH-65 series helicopters are nearly halfway through their periodic upgrade segments at the Aviation Logistics Center. The HC-130Hs have upgraded surface search radars, center wing boxes have been purchased and the avionics upgrade segment is well underway.
The Coast Guard Cutter Bernard C. Webber prepares to enter the water. (Fast Response Cutter)
Three National Security Cutters have been delivered, with two more under construction, and 12 Fast Response Cutters are being built as I write this article. Delivery of FRC #1, the Bernard C. Webber, is imminent. The 110-foot patrol boats and 210-foot Medium Endurance Cutters have completed the Mission Effectiveness Project at the Coast Guard Yard, and approximately half of the shipyard availabilities for the 270-foot MEC class have been completed.
Our Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) and small boat projects are also making progress on a regular basis. A total of 126 Response Boats-Medium have been ordered, with 77 delivered. We have awarded contracts for the 7-meter Over-the-Horizon cutter boat and will evaluate four contenders in February. We received proposals for the 11-meter Long Range Interceptor cutter boat. Rescue 21 is nearly complete in the continental U.S. with island sites in progress. The Nationwide Automatic Identification System, Interagency Operation Centers and C4 Common Operational Picture are making regular progress and providing real value to overall maritime domain awareness.
The crew of a Coast Guard Station Key West 45-foot Response Boat-Medium patrols off Key West April 7, 2010. Station Key West is one of three smallboat stations within Coast Guard Sector Key West, which has a 55,000-square-mile area of responsibility that contains two international borders–Cuba and The Bahamas.View and download this image from the Coast Guard Visual Information Gallery.
The operational successes of our new assets have been well documented. The significant developmental work invested over the last several years has removed the majority of risks from our current acquisition projects. The one significant risk across the board is having the cash flow to finish funding them as efficiently as possible. The business case to do so is compelling given the operational needs and the maturity of the projects.
Failure to finish out these investments will create capability gaps in the future as other recapitalization needs become inexorably more urgent.
Deepwater is officially dead – long live Coast Guard recapitalization.
You are way off in your assessment. So far off in fact I believe you have a credibility issue.
Look at the new DHS IG report on mission performance and the RAND study post 9/11 and compare them to the fleet numbers.
http://www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/Mgmt/OIG_11-111_Sep11.pdf
RAND report. Please refer to baseline, 10 and 15 year asset availability charts and compare them to today’s data.
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2004/RAND_MG114.pdf
There is almost a 100k gap lower in mission hours since 2005 – see the report page 4. If you look at the RAND report, commissioned by the Coast Guard post 9/11, you would see there was supposed to be a steady increase of available aircraft and cutters during this period. The $27B Deepwater program is still failing. This situation was caused by ICGS. (Note that the original cost was $17B and $9B have been spent to date). In comparisons with the RAND report you can see that the Deepwater program caused the Coast Guard to be dozens of assets behind – over 5 years in most cases. And that is compared to the original Deepwater plan not the 10 or 15 year acceleration RAND called for post 9/11. The means the Coast Guard is now 15-20 years behind what is needed and over 5 years worse off than before Deepwater began when compared the the least aggressive schedule. A schedule that RAND stated was 10-15 years behind what the nation needed to be safe and secure. This is evident with all of the 110s still in service (after some had refurbishments the CG never planned to spend for), no 123s in service, no FRCs in service, less than half of the planned NSCs in service and no OPCs on the horizon even though they were supposed to be hitting the fleet over the next few years. It is unfortunate the OIG didn’t look at the overall impact of the Coast Guard’s mission performance in relation to the nation’s needs post 9/11.
The Coast Guard is paying a $10B premium for horrible performance on ICGS part (and that is based on the $27B current estimate which is expected to grow). This is a 60% cost increase for a 12% lower mission availability due to aging assets that should have been replaced. If you extrapolate this out the Coast Guard would have to pay 120% more than the original $17B ($37B total) to stay even. And even is 10-15 years behind what is really needed. This is made worse by the fact that no one has been held accountable for the lost 123s. And no one has been held accountable for the program wide false guaranty by ICGS and the fraudulent inducement of the whole contract. (This means ICGS should have never been able to compete in or win that contract. A contract they won by falsely stating the assets they built were guaranteed, We are hopeful that working together with the Coast Guard and DoJ we can sort all of this out so the Coast Guard, the American citizen’s and taxpayer’s are properly compensated and ICGS is held accountable)
From the report p5
“According to Coast Guard officials, this decline in total resource hours is attributable, in part, to unavailability of aging cutters and aircraft resulting from unscheduled maintenance. There has also been increased use of these assets for support functions such as training. Support hours for the 11 statutory missions have increased 15% since FY 2007, thereby decreasing the total available resource hours for conducting missions.”
You can retire the name when and claim success when the data actually points to us being where we need to be and paid ICGS to be and they are held accountable.
These reports demonstrably show the Coast Guard is far worse off than before. And that is just compared to the RAND post 9/11 Deepwater project baseline schedule. Factor in the 10 and 15 year accelerations RAND recommended and the country is far less safe than before 9/11.
http://cgreport.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/going-to-publish-routine-report-on-mission-performance-issues/