Cost Overruns Blamed on Power Surges

Begin forwarded message:

From: Carl Malamud <[email protected]>
Date: December 9, 2006 11:52:45 PM GMT+09:00
To: [email protected]
Subject: Cost Overruns Blamed on Power Surges

Dave -

The NY Times has an in-depth article on (yet another) government
procurement gone awry.  In this case, the Coast Guard convinced
Congress to allocate funds for a much-needed fleet upgrade.  But
instead of using the Coast Guard staff to oversee the upgrade,
the entire job was simply outsourced and the results are predictable.

Particularly interesting is the explanation for why upgraded
cutters have little problems like cracks in the hull:

    Giant steel straps that looked like Band-Aids were affixed to the
    side of the boats, and the vessels were barred from venturing out
    in rough water. But cracks and bulges continued to scar the
    Matagorda and other converted ships, followed by a series of
    mechanical problems.

    Bollinger, it turned out, had overestimated how much stress the
    modified boats could handle, a miscalculation it cannot fully
    explain.  "The computer broke for some reason," said T. R. Hamlin,
    a senior Bollinger manager. "Whether it was a power surge or
    something, who knows?" The cursory oversight by the Coast Guard
    meant the mistake was not caught in time.

Full article is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/us/09ship.html

Carl