Skunk Works

My years inside the Skunk Works, for example, convinced me of the tremendous value of building prototypes. I am a true believer. The beauty of a prototype is that it can be evaluated and its uses clarified before costly investments for large numbers are made. Prior to purchasing a fleet of new billion-dollar bombers, the Air Force can intensively audition four or five, learn how to use them most effectively on different kinds of missions and how to maximize new technologies on board. They can also discover how to best combine the new bombers with others in the inventory to achieve maximum combat effectiveness.

One of the problems with our stealth fighter was that because it was hidden for years behind a wall of tight security, most Air Force tactical planners didn’t even know it existed and thus had no way of integrating the airplane into overall combat planning and strategy. By the time the F-117A arrived on station for duty in Operation Desert Storm, the airplane was largely a cipher to the high command in terms of its performance capabilities. After the war ended, Lt. General Charles Horner, in charge of Air Force operations, stated frankly that before the F-117A’s first combat mission, he was apprehensive about the effectiveness of stealth in combat. “We had a lot of technical data, but I had no way of knowing that we would not lose the entire fleet that first night of the war. We were betting everything on the data proving the technology—but we had no real experience with the airplane to know for certain how well it performed under fire. We sent those boys in naked and all alone. As it turned out, the data was right on the mark. But we should’ve known that before the first attack.”

As another streamlining improvement in the years ahead, the government should adopt the Skunk Works’ proven procedures for concurrency in manufacturing new airplanes or weapons systems. That is, new weapons systems or airplanes need not be endlessly perfected before production begins, provided that development proceeds carefully, avoiding the messes that both the B-1 and B-2 bombers got into when it was discovered that their avionics and weapons systems, independently produced, just didn’t fit into the strategy and design concept of the new bombers. Fixing it cost a fortune. The bottom line in concurrency development is cost savings, provided it is done right. Our experience on the stealth fighter proves it can be cost effective to build in improvements from production model to production model and keep within the budget and time frame contracted for. By the time we built stealth fighter number ten, we had enhanced many features that we were able to quickly install into the first nine models, because we had planned for concurrency from the beginning by keeping detailed parts records on all the production models and designing easy access to all onboard avionics and flight control systems.

Procurement should be on a fast track basis with a minimum of meetings, supervision, reviews, and reports. Whenever possible all parts on a new airplane should be commercially available, not specially made for military specs that are most often overkill and unnecessarily costly.

Another sound management practice that is gospel at the Skunk Works is to stick with reliable suppliers. Japanese auto manufacturers discovered long ago that periodically switching suppliers and selecting new ones on the basis of lowest bidders proved a costly blunder. New suppliers frequently underbid just to gain a foothold in an industry, then meet their expenses by providing inferior parts and quality that can seriously impair overall performance standards. And even if a new supplier does produce quality parts according to the specifications, his parts will not necessarily match those furnished by the previous supplier: his tooling and calibrations might be different, causing the major manufacturer extra costs to rework other system components.

For these reasons Japanese manufacturers usually form lasting relationships with proven suppliers, and we at the Skunk Works do the same. We believe that trouble-free relationships with old suppliers will ultimately keep the price of our products lower than if we were to periodically put their contracts up for the lowest bid.