Acquire a major defence capability

Years of analysis and gates before a contract is signed, none of it on a statutory clock, none of it with published elapsed times, and none of it reviewable by anyone outside Defence.

defenceA major capital acquisition in the Integrated Investment Program, passing through the Capability Life Cycle to government second pass approval and contract skeleton compare across jurisdictions

This is a structural skeleton, not a measured process. The steps, the authorities and the sequence are researched from this jurisdiction's published requirements and are broadly right. The durations are a uniform template applied across all jurisdictions, so the differences between them on the comparison page are mostly an artefact of that template rather than evidence about Australia. Do not quote the day counts. Replacing them with sourced figures for even one jurisdiction would make this page genuinely useful.

5540 days elapsed
longest dependent chain

10 discrete steps
across 2 bodies

10% waiting on availability
scheduling or queue, not assessment

0 days saved by concurrency
vs. 5540 if run end-to-end

Where the time goes

Critical-path days only. Steps that run alongside others are real work but do not lengthen the process, so counting them here would overstate the prize.

applicant	2555d	Waiting on the applicant to supply or fix something.
assessment	2445d	Someone is genuinely evaluating the merits.
scheduling	540d	Waiting for a person or committee to become available.

540 of 5540 elapsed days are spent waiting for a person or a meeting rather than for a judgement to be formed. Removing that time changes no assessment standard and lowers no bar -- it is the cost of scheduling alone.

The process, step by step

Applies when: A capability need is identified that requires government approval and a major acquisition contract.

#	Step	Who	Why it waits	Clock	Typical	Basis
1	Capability need identified and entered in the investment program application	Department of Defence	assessment	—	365 estimate	—
2	Gate 0: strategy and concepts decision Internal endorsement that the need is real and warrants development. after Capability need identified and entered in the investment program 4995d slack	Department of Defence	scheduling	—	180 estimate	—
3	Risk mitigation and requirement setting assessment Options analysis, industry engagement, cost and schedule estimation, and requirements definition. after Gate 0: strategy and concepts 4265d slack	Department of Defence	assessment	—	730 estimate	—
4	Gate 1: government first pass approval decision Government approves the options to be developed and the funding to develop them. after Risk mitigation and requirement setting 4085d slack	Department of Defence	scheduling	—	180 estimate	—
5	Solicitation and tender evaluation assessment after Gate 1: government first pass approval 3545d slack	Department of Defence	assessment	—	540 estimate	—
6	Gate 2: government second pass approval decision Government approves the acquisition and the funding. after Solicitation and tender evaluation 3365d slack	Department of Defence	scheduling	—	180 estimate	—
7	Contract negotiation and execution decision after Gate 2: government second pass approval 3095d slack	Department of Defence	assessment	—	270 estimate	—
8	Facilities, environmental and works approvals referral only if triggered Approvals for the bases, ranges, wharves and infrastructure the capability requires. Triggered when: The capability requires new or modified facilities, which for a major platform it invariably does. after Gate 2: government second pass approval 2965d slack	Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water	assessment	—	400 estimate	—
9	Design, build and delivery application after Contract negotiation and execution 540d slack	—	applicant	—	2555 estimate	—
10	Test, evaluation and acceptance into service certification after Design, build and delivery	Department of Defence	assessment	—	540 estimate	—

on the critical path scheduling/queue = delay not caused by the assessment itself

Machine-flagged questions

These are produced automatically from the dependency graph. They are questions for a practitioner, not findings. Each one needs a person who has run this process to say whether the constraint is real.

Steps that may not need to wait

Facilities, environmental and works approvals is a referral queued behind work by a different body. Does it consume that body's output, or is it merely sequenced that way by habit?

The same body asked more than once

defence (assessment) appears at Risk mitigation and requirement setting, Solicitation and tender evaluation. Could these be a single sign-off?

Sources

Department of Defence, Capability Life Cycle and Integrated Investment Program
ANAO, Capability Development Reform, and related Defence performance audits finding governance arrangements were not implemented effectively
Department of Defence, Rebuilding Defence Capability, 2 July 2026, establishing the Defence Delivery Agency from 1 July 2027
Rebuilding Defence Capability: An Independent Report, Department of Defence, July 2026, https://www.defence.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-07/RebuildingDefenceCapability_FINAL.pdf, accessed 2026-11-09
Going to the Next Level: the report of the Defence Procurement and Sustainment Review (Mortimer Review), Defence Materiel Organisation, 2008, http://repository.jeffmalone.org/files/defence/mortimerReview.pdf, accessed 2026-11-09
Planning and Approval of Defence Major Capital Equipment Projects, ANAO Audit Report No. 48 2008-09, https://www.anao.gov.au/sites/default/files/ANAO_Report_2008-2009_48.pdf, accessed 2026-11-09

Something wrong here?

This page is wrong in some way -- every page like it is. If you have run this process, the most useful thing you can do is tell us which step took longer than we say and why. Edit data/processes/au-defence-major-acquisition.toml and open a pull request, or send us the correction.