Vanguard Magazine

INTERVIEW 18 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017 www.vanguardcanada.com I COST ESTIMATE FOR THE CANADIAN SURFACE COMBATANTS Interview with Allan Weldon, Executive Director for the Centre for Costing in Defence at the Department of National Defence As a former Naval Reserve, Allan Weldon joined National Defence in 1990. Since that time, he has served in a series of positions of increasing responsibility within the Finance Branch, as well as spending time within both the Canadian Army and the Information Management Branch. In 2011, because of the Chief Financial Ocer realignment initiative, he became Director Costing Services. He has since grown and transformed the costing function in National Defence and is now the Executive Director of the newly established Center for Costing in Defence responsible for both producing Life Cycle Cost Estimates for major procurement projects as well as for implementing leading and best practices in costing in Defence. Editor of Vanguard, Marcello Sukhdeo spoke with Allan Weldon recently about costing for Defence within the context of CSC. Q: As the Executive Director for Centre for Costing in Defence at the Department of National Defence, can you share with us your main responsibilities? My organization is split into two parts. I have a group that pro- duces cost estimates, and I have another group that we call cost analytics; they provide the background information, do research into techniques on costing, look at costing software among other things. That's the way we are organized within the Centre. The main responsibility is producing cost estimates for all acquisition projects over $5 million. Q: So, you're responsible for doing costing for each acquisition program above $5 million? Yes, essentially all equipment acquisition projects and also other things like the Defence Policy Review (DPR). We provided cost estimates for the initiatives for the DPR, and we are also involved in other areas that need costing from an organizational context. What I am not responsible for is costing for military operations and activities inside a Level 1 – that is the army, navy, air force. Anything they are doing within their own area of responsibility, I don't get involved in unless it's something that has to go to the deputy min- ister or to the minister for approval; then I am responsible to cost it. Q: How many members do you have on your sta? Do you have the resources to handle all the costing requirements for DND, or do you outsource as well? We do a little bit of outsourcing since we are currently in a growth period. About two years ago, it was identified that we didn't have enough staff resources, so we have made an investment in addi- tional staff resources and are now just at the point of completing the recruiting and training of new staff. So currently we are now becoming fully staffed and should have enough resources to fulfill our mandate with a staff of about 89 members, with the use of some contracted support from time to time. Q: For those costing jobs that are being outsourced, how is it done? We have done it primarily through individual call-ups against standing offers. There are some contracting vehicles available to us under professional services where we can just do a statement of work and then do a call-up of a resource. Q: What are the main challenges to costing? The basic challenge around costing is dealing with uncertainty. It's not like buying a new truck at the local car dealership when

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