Audit finds lax oversight on LCS 2 costs

[unhappycamper]

Audit finds lax oversight on LCS 2 costs
Staff report
Posted : Thursday Jul 31, 2008 6:21:54 EDT

An internal Navy audit found a “significant breakdown” in oversight and cost controls for the second littoral combat ship, now about $300 million over budget and a year behind schedule at its shipyard in Mobile, Ala., according to a report Wednesday.

The Navy document, obtained under the freedom of information act by the Mobile Press-Register newspaper, reported that project managers at Austal USA, the shipyard building the General Dynamics-designed LCS 2, were not keeping Navy acquisitions officials in the loop about the Independence’s cost and schedule problems.

More specifically, the audit found that Austal hadn’t followed 20 of the Defense Department’s 32 guidelines for tracking “earned value management”; that the Navy’s supervisor of shipbuilding in Bath, Maine, hadn’t watched Austal close enough; nor did the ship’s prime contractor, General Dynamics. And, in January 2007, when Naval Sea Systems Command established an LCS “Program Management Assist Group” to look into the project, it was given just 15 working days to report its findings.

Only one person in the LCS Project Management Office was responsible for overseeing “earned value management,” the audit found, part of an overall shortage of personnel as the shipbuilding program ran in what workers called a “fire-drill cycle.” That one person also worked in Bath, as opposed to working at the shipyard in Mobile. Project overseers later added more workers to oversee the cost-benefit data, according to the report.

Navy spokesman Lt. Clay Doss was unavailable Wednesday for questions from Navy Times, but he told the Press-Register that the Navy was committed to “earned value management” and that the Navy was “working proactively to make sure it’s implemented.”


Article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/07/navy_lcs2_audit_073008w/



uhc comment: When originally proposed, the estimated cost of an LCS was $200,000,000. As delivered, these bad boys cost somewhere between $3,300,000,000 and $5,000,000,000 a pop.

Two days ago the cost overrun was put at "at least $500 million".

Next week I expect to see an article that the LCS is late and within cost estimates. Gimmeabreak, guys.