Another Fine Mess…

There are reasons for hiring outside consultants to do something. Usually you want to do something once or very rarely and it involves skills that are not available in your company. These are the same reasons you hire a plumber at home. You could take courses and buy all the tools, but it’s not very cost effective.

On the other hand if you are about to enter into a program that deals with the heart and soul of your operation, that will take decades, and will cost billions of dollars, it would probably be a good idea to have people in your organization watching the project very closely.

The Washington Post has an article up on MSNBC, Costly fleet update falters about the Coast Guard’s “Deepwater” project that shows what can go wrong when all of the control is given to an outside vendor:

The program’s failures are spelled out in a series of Government Accountability Office and Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s reports and in congressional testimony, which point to the leeway given to the program’s contractors, Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. Through their joint venture, Integrated Coast Guard Systems, the companies declined to comment, referring all questions to the Coast Guard.

Because of this program 8 of the 10 Coast Guard vessels at the Port of Miami are stuck at the dock because of an “upgrade” that failed. The Coast Guard doesn’t have the people to watch over the program, and the contractors have no incentives to do the job properly. This is another post-9/11, no-oversight, throw money at it, Republican tax give away.

Nadezhda at American Footprints also covers this and she has pictures of some of the “toys” that are included in the program.