Weapon Systems: Concurrency in the Acquisition Process

GAO discussed concurrency in the Department of Defense's (DOD) acquisition of weapons systems. GAO referred to various GAO reports which illustrated that advanced weapons systems production before successful critical testing resulted in systems that did not perform as DOD intended. GAO believes that: (1) DOD can no longer afford to concurrently develop and produce high-cost advanced weapons systems without knowing early in the acquisition process whether the systems have the desired capabilities; and (2) because of recent national security environment changes, DOD can wait until it has better knowledge of whether its weapon systems will work before committing to procuring them.