Acquisition

The U.S. Army today announced the selection of 20 small business and technology firms to advance to Phase III of the xTechSearch 4.0 technology prize competition. xTechSearch is an Army-sponsored competition focused on finding technologies with both defense and commercial applications that have been developed by American technology entrepreneurs and small businesses.

“The 20 selected entrepreneurs and companies presented incredible capabilities and systems that we would have not otherwise seen or been able to support had it not been for Army xTechSearch,” Bruce D. Jette, the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, says in the written announcement.

The Defense Security Service (DSS) and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) have awarded nearly $75 million to Perspecta Enterprise Solutions LLC of Herndon, Virginia, to help reform and modernize the security clearance personnel vetting processes and develop the National Background Investigation Service (NBIS) information technology system.

The response to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. John Richardson’s repeated request to “pick up the pace” of developing and implementing breakthrough technologies for our warfighters has gone, in my opinion, largely unheeded.

This is not the result of a lack of innovative solutions. A myriad of research and development programs exists to support the development of new technologies or to adapt existing commercial technologies to defense applications. Rather, it’s the result of an arcane acquisition process that is burdensome, expensive and lacking vision. Acquisition reform is where we need to pick up the pace!

As part of its effort to modernize, the U.S. Army is developing a new policy regarding intellectual property. The new procedure, to be released in a few months, will resemble rights commonly used by the commercial industry, said Bruce Jetty, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ASA(ALT)).

McKinsey and Company Inc., Washington, has been awarded an $8,447,163 modification (P00002) to contract FA8807-18-F-0010 for the space acquisition transformation. The contract modification is for the implementation of the Space Acquisition Transformation Plan. Work will be performed at Los Angeles Air Force Base, El Segundo, California, and is expected to be completed by March 29, 2019. Fiscal year 2018 funds are being obligated at the time of award. Total cumulative face value of the contract is $8,447,163. The Space and Missile Systems Center, Global Positioning Systems Directorate Contracting Division, Los Angeles AFB, El Segundo, California, is the contracting activity. 

Despite some challenges, the U.S. Air Force’s culture is changing in favor of small businesses, according to Valerie Muck, the service’s new director of small business programs.

"The main thing we’re trying to do in the Air Force is create that culture where we’re looking to small businesses first to maximize opportunities. Right now, the culture in the Air Force is in a really good place for that,” said Muck, who has been in the position nearly a year. She made the comments while addressing the AFCEA Small Business Committee at AFCEA’s headquarters building in Fairfax, Virginia.

U.S. Army officials are applying a streamlined acquisition process known as an IT box to offensive cyber technologies.

The IT box acquisition concept includes four sides: developing the capabilities requirement, determining development costs, analyzing sustainment and operations costs, and providing oversight and management of the product.

Maj. Gen. John George, USA, force development director, Office of the Army Chief of Staff G-8, told the the AFCEA Army Signal Conference in Springfield, Virginia, that the Army is focusing on the IT box concept pretty heavily.

The U.S. military is exploring ways to make virtually everything—from the uniform on a soldier’s body to the engine contained within a vehicle—connected and mission ready. Troop movements are being monitored, as are soldiers’ health statuses. Aircraft and other assets are providing real-time insight into enemy movements and other potential threats. Decisions are being made based on this information, which has the ability to flow in an unerring stream. Indeed, the Internet of Things (IoT) has further elevated the military’s reputation as a well-oiled machine.   

But, what if the machines that power that machine break down? What if heavy transport machinery stops running, or advanced weapons systems fail?

Defense computing systems need to operate in a highly disparate range of environments. Depending on the program’s requirements, ruggedness is a function of the environment each system will be deployed in. A system that operates just fine in a pressurized aerospace application, such as a wide-bodied aircraft, may have issues in a marine application, and may be completely unacceptable in a vehicle being driven through a hot and sandy desert. Even within airborne applications, the environment might be a wing-mounted pod that is completely unpressurized. Computing systems for each of these environments must be ruggedized to match requirements.

When rugged ... isn’t

Faced with aging equipment and vehicles from a bygone era, the Army is set to modernize by standing up a new command to transform its acquisition processes, among other things. It is one of the Army’s most significant restructuring efforts in the last 40 years. The need for modernization is coming from an "eroding" competitive advantage, and the evolving needs of a modern—and future—battlefield.

“We do not have time to waste,” implored Gen. Mark Milley, USA, U.S. Army chief of staff, at the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., on October 9. “Our challenges are growing in scale and are in every domain of warfare: land, maritime, air, cyber and space.”

Many U.S. government sectors, including defense, intelligence, public safety, cybersecurity and space, have seen a recent shift toward embracing new technologies and methodologies for delivering capabilities in a more responsive, agile manner.

The ecosystem of technologies that is driving this innovation is diverse to say the least. The foundation of this ecosystem is the underlying IT infrastructure. The evolution of hyperconverged infrastructure is maximizing the density of computing power, random-access memory and storage in these modern data centers, making it easier and more cost effective for providers to leverage and deploy applications and solutions.

The Defense Information Systems Agency is working to streamline its acquisition processes by using a mixture of efficiency and expertise. In some cases, the agency is adopting methods to free it from onerous Federal Acquisition Regulations. But mostly, its approaches leverage existing skills to condense traditionally drawn-out procedures.

In 2010, the Defense Department began accelerating toward its information technology future by putting the brakes on data center growth. That year, the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative laid the groundwork for government investment in more efficient and modern computing platforms, which led to deployment of disruptive technologies such as the cloud as a key element of the DOD’s IT infrastructure.

Fifth in an ongoing series of articles 

The U.S. government must bring its key software providers into the secure environment and use them as trusted partners in delivering and supporting their products. In many cases, these providers are not only the best sources of trusted software but also the only sources. Holding them contractually liable for certifying their products and delivering them directly to the end system may be the only way to reduce the time to furnish baseline systems, streamline costs and maintain product integrity and security.

Maj. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, USA, has been assigned as director of operations; and director, rapid equipment fielding, Army Rapid Capabilities Office, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army, Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, Washington, D.C.

Sweeping changes are on the horizon for one NATO agency as it reshapes its software acquisition processes and embarks on a task to create what officials call an in-house “software factory.”

The NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency wants to overhaul the way it buys software after inspections revealed acute shortcomings that led to several program cost overruns and delays, says Paul Howland, chief of command and control services for NCI Agency, which serves as NATO’s information technology and command, control, communications and computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) provider, including cyber and missile defense.

Weapon system acquisition costs and schedules are trending exponentially, and unsustainably, up and to the right. The Air Force can move down the cost/schedule curve to benefit value delivered to the warfighter, and the key is communications and dialog, according to Lt. Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr., USAF, military deputy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition.

Industry must keep the Air Force honest for starters, the general explained. “If we are asking for something industry cannot do, they need to tell me that from the beginning,” he stated during his address to the AFCEA International/GMU Critical Issues in C4I Symposium.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now accepting proposals for its upcoming Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program for fiscal year 2016. The Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) jointly issued the solicitation. S&T and DNDO are seeking technical solutions from small businesses in 13 topic areas. The pre-solicitation is available online.

The Defense Department’s much-anticipated capability solution to access classified voice and email up to the secret level from mobile devices finally migrated from the pilot stage and now is operational within the department and several federal agencies, says Kimberly Rice, program manger for the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA's) Mobility Program Management Office.

Maj. Gen. Daniel Hughes, USA, program executive officer, command, control and communications-tactical (PEO-C3T), cops to being an impatient man. Patience is one of the first things to go as you age, he says.

That impatience showed during an interview for my March PEO Spotlight column, "Shaking Up the Radio Marketplace." It was a hard-charging zigzag from one topic to the next with a fair number of self-deprecating jokes scattered along the way. He spoke in a rapid-fire manner, as if concerned each word will consume too much time.

The U.S. Army’s Project Manager of Robotic Systems Joint Project Office, Warren, Michigan, is conducting market research to see what companies can provide a lightweight common robotic system (CRS) for dismounted soldiers.

The inertial navigation system (INS) market size is estimated to be $2.75 billion in 2014 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10.98 percent to reach $4.63 billion by 2019, according to Research and Markets, a Dublin-based market analysis firm. Though North America and Europe have the largest market for INS in terms of commercial and defense aviation, military and naval applications, a lot of INS development programs have been launched in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

U.S. Defense Department networks will need to operate with the minimum security available as connectivity and the threat picture evolve, said a top defense official. Terry Halvorsen, acting Defense Department chief information officer, minced no words as he described how tight budgets are limiting options across the board.

“I want for all these networks, the minimum level of security to get the mission done,” Halvorsen declared. “If we try to do the best security everywhere, we will not get to what we want. We don’t have the money; we don’t have the time.”

The U.S. Navy has evaluated color-coded chemical detection technology known as colorimetric explosive detection kits, the service recently announced. Colorimetric detection technology is based upon a series of chemical reactions that produce a visual response, most often in the form of a color change dependent upon the molecular structure of the compounds being tested.