Faster. Better. Cheaper. Choose Two.

There is an excellent article this morning in the NY Times about the troubles on the LCS program. I've been working on and off with the LCS program since I was an intern at NAVSEA in 2001. Back then it was still called Streetfighter. Then it was the Small Fast Surface Combatant, followed by the Focused Mission Ship, until it finally became the Littoral Combat Ship.

Most of the industry has been involved with the program at one point or another. There were many teams competing with original design proposals a few years back. Now, the two winning teams are extremely busy, and many others (such as my company) are working on the government side consulting and reviewing. It is a huge effort, and is almost universally decried as a mess.

The two designs are fairly solid; the trouble has been the execution. This article does a good job of explaining how it has happened, and why. It's not $500 wrenches that make the defense budget so high - it's half a billion dollar frigates that are the problem.