Calling Innovators: The Navy Wants You
The Navy has released guidance for technological innovation.
“We are simplifying and expediting how we identify the best internal and external innovations and getting them to the field faster,” said Justin Fanelli, acting chief technology officer at the Department of the Navy.
The Program Executive Office Digital and Enterprise Services (PEO Digital) has guidelines for innovators, both within the service and for external suppliers.
“There's no monopoly on good ideas,” said Louis Koplin, PEO Digital executive director.
“We want to be able to see these good ideas emerging, and as they get proven out, as they mature, as there's an opportunity to scale, our ability to be adaptable and mobile is really what allows us to capitalize on that and make quick pivots,” Koplin added.
As the PEO distributes new capabilities, it measures performance and adoption, a key parameter to understanding user satisfaction.
“One of our pilots gained 60,000 new happy users in the last two weeks, the fastest that a commercial product has scaled anywhere, and it dropped the per-user cost, which means that we can continue to be efficient and reinvest,” Fanelli told SIGNAL Media in an interview.
The outcomes expected from this are less user time loss, operational resiliency, adaptability, customer satisfaction and lower costs per user, according to Koplin.
We are simplifying and expediting how we identify the best internal and external innovations.
PEO Digital has published an Innovation Adoption Kit (IAK) for internal use, for sailors who want to present ideas.
“Now, when something breaks, it's much more likely that we have two or three other options to replace them,” Fanelli said. “So we are now able to more often disrupt ourselves with implementing and adopting innovation,” he added.
Companies and individuals outside of the Navy who want to submit new opportunities and get through a supplier streamlined process, can access the Industry Engagement book, a similar version of the IAK.
After creating a process that democratizes the opportunities to bring innovation forward, the Navy expects to have a consistent flow of ideas that will improve its processes.
