F-35 Sustainment: Need for Affordable Strategy, Greater Attention to Risks, and Improved Cost Estimates
Highlights
What GAO Found
The Department of Defense (DOD) currently has or is developing several plans and analyses that will make up its overall F-35 sustainment strategy, which is expected to be complete in fiscal year 2019. The annual F-35 operating and support (O&S) costs are estimated to be considerably higher than the combined annual costs of several legacy aircraft (see fig.). DOD has begun some cost-savings efforts and established sustainment affordability targets for the F-35 program, but DOD did not use the military services' budgets to set these targets. Therefore, these targets may not be representative of what the services can afford and do not provide a clear benchmark for DOD's cost-savings efforts. In addition, DOD has not fully addressed several issues that have an effect on affordability and operational readiness, including aircraft reliability and technical-data rights, which could affect the development of the sustainment strategy.
Comparison of the Annual Estimated F-35 Operating and Support (O&S) Cost at Steady State to Actual Legacy Aircraft O&S Costs in Fiscal Year 2010
Notes: For the purposes of this report, GAO defines steady-state operations as the period from 2036 to 2040, when, according to the services' plans, the number of F-35 aircraft and flying hours reaches its highest point and plateaus.
aThe F-35 cost presented is Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation's (CAPE) estimated total annual operating and support (O&S) cost for 2040 in base year 2012 dollars.
bLegacy aircraft cost is based on a CAPE analysis of 2010 cost data, representing a high point for aircraft O&S budgets due to contingency operations at that time.
It is unclear whether DOD's O&S cost estimates for the F-35 program reflect the most likely costs that the F-35 program will incur. DOD has two primary F-35 O&S estimates that each total around $1 trillion over a 56-year life cycle. These cost estimates are comprehensive in that they include all DOD-required program elements and are organized according to a standard O&S cost-estimating structure; however, weaknesses exist with respect to a few of the assumptions, and the estimates did not include all analyses necessary to make them fully reliable. For example, the estimates did not use reasonable fuel burn rate assumptions that reflect the likely future F-35 fuel usage. Further, one of the estimates did not use reasonable assumptions about part replacement rates and depot maintenance. Finally, while DOD took some steps to mitigate the uncertainties inherent in cost estimates, DOD officials did not conduct key analyses to determine the level of risk associated with the estimates.
Why GAO Did This Study
The F-35 Lightning II is intended to replace a variety of existing aircraft in the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, while providing the most supportable, technologically advanced, lethal, and survivable aircraft to date. The F-35 is DOD's most expensive weapon system, with estimated sustainment costs of about $1 trillion. With the military services planning for the ability to deploy and maintain the F-35 within 4 years, DOD is working to develop a sustainment strategy that will be both affordable and executable for the program's life cycle.
GAO was mandated to review DOD's F-35 sustainment planning efforts. This report addresses the extent to which DOD has (1) developed an F-35 sustainment strategy and addressed potential risks related to affordability and operational readiness and (2) developed a reliable O&S cost estimate for the program's life cycle. GAO analyzed documented plans and cost estimates and interviewed DOD and contractor officials.
Recommendations
GAO recommends that DOD develop better informed affordability constraints; address three risks that could affect sustainment, affordability, and operational readiness; and take steps to improve the reliability of its cost estimates. DOD concurred with all but one recommendation and partially concurred with the recommendation to conduct uncertainty analysis on one of its cost estimates, stating it already conducts a form of uncertainty analysis. GAO continues to believe that the recommended analysis would provide a more comprehensive sense of the uncertainty in the estimates.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Defense |
Priority Rec.
To help DOD develop an affordable sustainment strategy for the F-35, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics to direct the F-35 Program Executive Officer to establish affordability constraints linked to, and informed by, military service budgets that will help guide sustainment decisions, prioritize requirements, and identify additional areas for savings by March 2015, at which point the Future Support Construct decision will be approved. |
In October 2018, the F-35 Joint Program Office released its updated Acquisition Strategy (version 5.0) for the F-35 program. The release included affordability constraints for sustainment that were generated by each military service purchasing F-35 aircraft. These constraints were, as our recommendation suggests, informed by the services' individual budgets. The release of these constraints represents the first time the services have provided individual affordability constraints for their respective aircraft. These constraints, according to DOD, will be included in the updated Acquisition Program Baseline that will serve as the official sustainment cost target for the overall program moving forward. Furthermore, in October 2018, DOD released an F-35 Acquisition Decision Memorandum stating that the F-35's Program Executive Officer shall submit, for approval, an update to the F-35's Life Cycle Sustainment Plan (by December 31, 2018) using the service's affordability goals and stating how the Program Executive Officer plans to achieve these goals by 2024. By establishing the affordability constraints in the Acquisition Strategy, and with the plan to apply these constraints to both the Acquisition Program Baseline and Life Cycle Sustainment Plan, DOD has addressed our priority recommendation.
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| Department of Defense | To improve the reliability of the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) F-35 O&S cost estimate, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Director of CAPE, for future F-35 O&S cost estimates, to clearly document assumptions related to intermediate-level maintenance and revise fuel burn assumptions to better reflect the current and future state of the F-35 program. |
CAPE has updated its estimate using the Master Data Assumptions List (MDAL) that the Joint Program Office updates regularly. This MDAL contains updated intermediate-level maintenance and fuel burn assumptions. This practice allows CAPE and the JPO to remain on the same page with the most up-to-date programmatic assumptions. This practice addresses our recommendation.
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| Department of Defense |
Priority Rec.
To help DOD address key risks to F-35 affordability and operational readiness, and to improve the reliability of its O&S cost estimates for the life cycle of the program, the Secretary of Defense should direct the F-35 Program Executive Officer, to enable DOD to better identify, address, and mitigate performance issues with the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) that could have an effect on affordability, as well as readiness, to establish a performance-measurement process for ALIS that includes, but is not limited to, performance metrics and targets that (1) are based on intended behavior of the system in actual operations and (2) tie system performance to user requirements. |
DOD concurred with our recommendation. In January 2020, DOD announced that it intended to replace ALIS with a future system that it has named the F-35 Operational Data Integrated Network (ODIN). As part of the development of ODIN, DOD developed "Capability Performance Measures" (performance metrics and targets) to assess the performance of ODIN. These performance metrics and targets were finalized in September 2020. Furthermore, in November 2021, DOD released its ALIS Redesign Strategy which lists goals, identifies system performance metrics, and outlines a transition plan from ALIS to ODIN. We believe that establishing these metrics and targets, and completing a redesign strategy are critical steps for improving the performance of the F-35's logistics system. However, ODIN has not yet been implemented and, as of January 2023, DOD officials did not anticipate implementing this capability until mid-to-late 2024. For this reason, and since ALIS will remain the logistics system of record for the F-35 until ODIN replaces it, this recommendation remains open.
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| Department of Defense | To help DOD address key risks to F-35 affordability and operational readiness, and to improve the reliability of its O&S cost estimates for the life cycle of the program, the Secretary of Defense should direct the F-35 Program Executive Officer, to develop a high level of confidence that the aircraft will achieve its R+M goals, to develop a software reliability and maintainability (R+M) assessment process, with metrics, by which the program can monitor and determine the effect that software issues may have on overall F-35 R+M issues. |
DOD concurred with our recommendation; however, as of January 2023 has not implemented it. According to DOD officials, as of July 2018, the department and the Joint Program Office, as part of their focus on agile software development, are working to incorporate software reliability and maintainability metrics into future software development and sustainment contracts. Some of the proposed metrics under consideration include: change failure rate; number of errors in developmental/user/operational testing; time to fix on critical errors; and mean time to restore. As of January 2023, DOD officials stated that there was no update to this status. Although attention is being paid to software Reliability & Maintainability, until DOD develops a process focused on software and its effects on overall Reliability & Maintainability issues, this recommendation will remain open.
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| Department of Defense |
Priority Rec.
To help DOD address key risks to F-35 affordability and operational readiness, and to improve the reliability of its O&S cost estimates for the life cycle of the program, the Secretary of Defense should direct the F-35 Program Executive Officer, to promote competition, address affordability, and inform its overarching sustainment strategy, to develop a long-term Intellectual Property (IP) Strategy to include, but not be limited to, the identification of (1) current levels of technical data rights ownership by the federal government and (2) all critical technical data needs and their associated costs. |
DOD concurred with our recommendation. According to DOD officials, the F-35 program's Joint Program Office has been working for years on developing an Intellectual Property Strategy for the F-35; however, the development of an Intellectual Property Strategy depends on the program having a clear understanding of what sustainment work the government will perform, and what sustainment work contractors will perform. As of January 2023, the division of government and contractor F-35 sustainment responsibilities is still in dispute among the customers of the F-35 program. Until DOD resolves these differences and determines the appropriate balance of government and contractor responsibilities for sustainment activities, DOD will not complete an Intellectual Property Strategy for the F-35 program.
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| Department of Defense | To help DOD address key risks to F-35 affordability and operational readiness, and to improve the reliability of its O&S cost estimates for the life cycle of the program, the Secretary of Defense should direct the F-35 Program Executive Officer, to improve the reliability of the Joint Program Office (JPO) F-35 O&S cost estimate, to clearly document assumptions related to intermediate-level maintenance costs and revise assumptions related to fuel burn rates, part replacement, and depot-maintenance induction in its future F-35 O&S cost estimates to better reflect the current and future state of the F-35 program. |
In response to our recommendation, the PEO updated the 2014 F-35 Ground Rules and Assumptions (GR&A) documentation for intermediate-level maintenance assumptions to more explicitly define the current 2-level (organizational and depot) maintenance strategy. Additionally, the PEO revised the 2014 fuel burn rate GR&A documentation for the F-35A according to a US Air Force modeled direct fuel consumption approach inclusive of future growth and the F-35B and F-35C according to Department of the Navy recommended fuel consumption rates and adjustment factors. Furthermore, the PEO reviewed and updated the 2014 part replacement GR&A documentation for reliability, condemnation assumptions, and component pricing for maintenance-significant items per aircraft variant. Finally, the PEO revised the 2014 depot maintenance GR&A documentation for the discrete tasks associated with Low Observable scuff and refresh, analytical condition inspection, and unscheduled maintenance. These actions will allow the JPO to provide more reliable O&S cost information in its future estimates, improving decision-makers' ability to make more informed F-35 sustainment decisions. We believe the actions taken have met the intent of our recommendation.
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| Department of Defense | To help DOD address key risks to F-35 affordability and operational readiness, and to improve the reliability of its O&S cost estimates for the life cycle of the program, the Secretary of Defense should direct the F-35 Program Executive Officer, to understand the potential range of costs associated with the JPO F-35 O&S cost estimate, to conduct uncertainty analyses on future JPO estimates. |
DOD concurred with our recommendation. According to DOD officials, as of July 2018, this recommendation conflicts with established Office of the Under Secretary of Defense/Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation guidance for cost estimation and uncertainty analysis. Absent a change in policy at that level, the Joint Program Office will continue to follow Office of the Under Secretary of Defense/Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation policy on this issue. We continue to believe it is important to conduct uncertainty analyses to understand the potential range of costs so that overall sustainment cost estimates reflect the most likely costs associated with the program. As a result, this recommendation will be closed as not implemented.
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| Department of Defense | To improve the reliability of the CAPE F-35 O&S cost estimate, the Secretary of Defense should direct the Director of CAPE, for future F-35 O&S cost estimates, to conduct uncertainty analyses to understand the potential range of costs associated with its estimates to reflect the most likely costs associated with the program. |
DOD partially concurred with our recommendation. According to DOD officials, as of July 2018, this recommendation conflicts with established Office of the Under Secretary of Defense/Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation guidance for cost estimation and uncertainty analysis. Absent a change in policy at that level, the Joint Program Office must continue to follow Office of the Under Secretary of Defense/Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation policy on this issue. We continue to believe it is important to conduct uncertainty analyses to understand the potential range of costs so that overall sustainment cost estimates reflect the most likely costs associated with the program. As a result, we are closing this recommendation as not implemented.
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