{"id":56227,"date":"2015-02-04T16:35:23","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T16:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2015\/02\/04\/interview-richard-lombardi\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:09:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:09:41","slug":"interview-richard-lombardi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/interviews\/2015\/02\/04\/interview-richard-lombardi\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Richard Lombardi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With the Feb. 2 release of President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2016 budget request, the US Air Force made clear it is threading the needle between current requirements and developing \u2014 and procuring \u2014 new technologies. Trying to help that balance is Richard Lombardi, the service’s principal deputy secretary for acquisition. He talked with Defense News about working more closely with industry and how the budget may be affected if Congress does not raise the Budget Control Act spending caps.Q. It is expected that service officials at the annual conference of the Air Force Association (AFA) will encourage working more closely with industry. What steps is the service taking on this?<\/b>A.<\/b> This has been a priority of Secretary [Deborah Lee] James, the chief of staff, and everything<\/span>\u200b for some time. It’s been a priority within OSD as a better, more transparent type of communications with our industry partners. It’s really \u2014 as you would expect in a time in which budgeting continues to be a challenges<\/span>\u200b \u2014 the more dialogue the better, and everything from a standpoint of being able to articulate what our needs are to help industry really think where they need to use their long-term investments. It’s really important for us to do that. <\/span>\u200bWe’ve been really using organizations like AFA, AIA <\/span>\u200bthe Aerospace Industry Association and NDIA<\/span>\u200b the National Defense Industrial Association to help us. We’re using them to lever better engagement with industry. [Leadership will] have a session down at AFA to kind of talk again with the industry.Digital Show Daily: Complete coverage of AFA’s Air Warfare Symposium<\/b><\/a>Obviously the budget [impacts] it, but I think we’ve always wanted to continue to have really good dialogue with industry, to be as transparent as we possibly can, to have discussions with <\/span>\u200bas early as we possibly can, to be able to articulate where our needs are and how they can better , then help <\/span>\u200bfulfill those needs. While I think it has really kind of taken a lot of emphasis over the last couple of years, in the years that I’ve been doing acquisition, I know that it’s been something that’s always been looked<\/span>\u200b.Q. Secretary James has expressed an interest in bringing in new, non-traditional industry partners. It’s been tried before without much success; why should this time be different? <\/b>A.<\/b> I think there are better opportunities now, particularly as we start doing things with systems that are more open architecture. There’s more opportunity for smaller business, smaller companies [which] may not be able to build out the entire infrastructure, but may be able to provide some type of an application associated with that. I think as we go more and more toward trying to open up the architecture on our systems, it will provide for better opportunities for competition. It should then also provide better opportunities for some of the smaller business that might be able to be well served and <\/span>\u200bhave that niche capability that would be able to provide that type of an application.Q. Working with industry is one thing. Working with the other services is another. Is more inter–<\/span>\u200bservice acquisition planning needed?<\/b> A.<\/b> Obviously you want to take a look and see what the requirements are, and see how there are opportunities to lever what other services are doing and where you can bring things closer together. You need to be careful from a standpoint of making sure that the individual requirements are still being taken care of. In an environment where you want to continue to try and drive down costs, you obviously want to be able to look at where you can leverage what is being done with other services, but you have to be mindful of where are our requirement sets, and do they match, or do you have to then take what is done and then <\/span>\u200btake it to the next level to support the requirements that the Air Force might have. There obviously needs to be continued engagement with the others services. to make sure we’re doing smart things and driving down costs.<\/span>\u200bQ. Because the president’s budget was submitted over the Budget Control Act caps, there is uncertainty about what will and won’t be funded. Do you hear frustration from industry about that?<\/b>A.<\/b> Yeah. Obviously the more stable we can be in our decision-making, the better. As you go from a BCA level one year to bipartisan budget act to, “OKokay<\/span>\u200b, we’re here at the president’s budget level, but there’s still a potential for BCA” \u2014 it’s just harder for people to make decisions,<\/span>\u200b long-term. Obviously the more stable you are with respect to where you think your funding is, the better planning people can do. There’s goodness in stability for people to be able to make long-term planning, and so <\/span>\u200bAs you see budgets just kind of go back and forth, it’s harder and harder for people to work on that. Q. The Air Force has offered a number of potential cuts if BCA levels must be met. Are there any that particularly worry you?<\/b> A.<\/b> We’ve been very good at keeping our S&T [science and technology] account at about over a $2 billion level. What that does is that it affords us to be able to work with the majcoms [major commands] to kind of do<\/span>[balance<\/span>\u200bfilling<\/span>\u200b]<\/span>\u200b fill the gaps that they have, while also looking at what are the game-changing type of technologies. I think as we talk about things like being more innovative, bringing on new technology and being more agile, if there are reductions in the S&T budget [that’s a problem.]<\/span>\u200bWe have to be able to bring in those technological advancements for us to be able to take care of emerging threats. That’s why as we look at our systems, and as we try to be more adaptable and flexible in them, that allows us to bring in new technology [more easily]. It allows us to be more flexible as emerging threats arrive. Those areas are really important for us to be able to do.<\/span>\u200bWhen you look at the BCA level, we start looking at reductions in quantities of our weapons. It affects the schedule on some programs, but I think that one of the things that you lose in these type of things is the innovations that we can gather. That’s an areas<\/span>\u200b where, I think, it’s important for us to try and continue to make sure we’re continuing to find opportunities through our laboratories to address the gaps that our majcoms are receiving right now, and also that balance of looking for what’s the next game-changer out there. Q. The Long Range Strike-Bomber program is the single largest RDTR<\/span>\u200b&E system in the budget. How are you trying to keep the costs close to $550 million per copy?<\/b>A.<\/b> What we’re trying to do is provide a capability by continuing to try and drive down costs everywhere we possibly can. That’s what we’ll see as part of the source selection. One way to make sure that we were controlling our costs is to make sure that we don’t have requirements creep associated with the program. I think part of it is to ensure that as we go beyond where we’re at to stay very rigid on the requirements and make sure that we’re staying true to the requirements that were put in. We do this on all of our programs, and this program should be no different. We have strict cost initiatives where there are opportunities to drive down costs. Every program we have is doing that. They’re looking at where are the opportunities [are] <\/span>\u200bwhere we can drive down the cost of the system. We get reporting in from programs on their cost initiatives and on what they’re projecting, and then what they actually realize. Programs track that on a regular basis. <\/span>\u200bThose are the types of things that we can continue to do, making sure we keep the requirements in check, looking at opportunities throughout the program, not just in the development but in the sustainment, where there are opportunities to continue to drive down costs. Q. How do you plan for sustainment costs early in the process?<\/b>A.<\/b> That’s one of the things that we continually work on our programs with \u2014 not just think about the design or the production, but the long-term sustainment and where there are opportunities to drive down the sustainment costs. associated with the programs. <\/span>\u200bWhat we don’t want to do is make a decision early on where we might be able to save $4 million, $5 million, $6 million here, but then in the sustainment it’s going to cost us $100 million because we were high-fiving ourselves when we saved $10 million on something. All we really did was just push the bill somewhere else. and everything. <\/span>\u200bThose are the types of things on which we’re really engaged to try and continue to drive down costs. It’s a really good tool for us to ask our program managers to think about their program and think about where there are opportunities to drive down costs.Q. Can you extrapolate cost-saving methods from LRS-B to future programs?<\/b>A.<\/b> I think there are always things that we can learn from every program on how you execute. We do that on a regular basis, it’s part of the dialogue that we have with respect to all of our PEOs. We’ll have PEO roundtables. One of the things we look at is where there are best practices on programs, and what they are doing to help drive down costs or become more efficient or process types of things that they’ve done <\/span>\u200bto be able to get things on contract faster. We bring the community together to try and share our best practices. Even on a program like this, there’ll be opportunities for us to use best practices out of there that we can be able to <\/span>\u200bpromulgate across the entire enterprise. Q. The Joint STARS replacement program was moved to the right in this budget request. Why was that?<\/b>A.<\/b> We were relooking at our strategy with respect to Joint STARS and making sure that we’re putting a sound acquisition structure in place. The thought on that is really to bring in <\/span>\u200ba technology-maturation and risk-reduction phase into the program, because while we’re really looking for a mature technology as part of this, the real <\/span>\u200bissue is really kind of how it’s integrated. [Adding] the tech-maturation and risk-reduction phase will allow us to see how the contractors are actually going to bring together the mature technology in an integrated fashion. The strategy is draft, [and] the <\/span>\u200bbudget reflects theat<\/span>\u200b thought process of doing that. It was the thoughtful thing with respect to how we think we should really try and mitigate the risk associated with executing the program. Email: amehta@defensenews.com<\/a>. Twitter: @AaronMehta<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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