Book Description

Since the EFV program began the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase, its return on investment has eroded as costs have increased, deliveries have been delayed, and expected reliability has been lowered. Since December 2000, the EFV s total cost has grown by about $3.9 billion or 45 percent, to $12.6 billion. Cost per vehicle has increased from $8.5 million to $12.3 million. Deliveries of vehicles to the warfighter have been delayed, as planned production quantities have been reduced by about 55 percent over fiscal years 2006-2011, and the development schedule has grown by about 4 years, or 35 percent. Furthermore, a key requirement has been lowered. EFV reliability a key performance parameter has been reduced from 70 hours of continuous operation to 43.5 hours. Program difficulties occurred in part because not enough time was allowed to demonstrate maturity of the EFV design during SDD. Best practices (and current DOD acquisition policy) call for system integration work to be conducted before the critical design review is held. This review represents the commitment to building full-scale SDD prototypes that are representative of the production vehicle.