ARMY AL&T
A knowledge-based approach—getting more information earlier on operational requirements, costs, technical feasibil- ity, and trade space—is key to achieving affordable force modernization and one that industry leaders have found to be highly successful.
To use a knowledge-based approach, you need to have a good understanding of where you are. Force modernization really starts by establishing baselines.
Baselines must be more than just the numbers and types of organizations and their associated personnel, equip- ment, and materiel. The baseline also must establish what organizations or warfighting functions were designed to do; their current and projected ratios of boots-on-the-ground to dwell time; how they train and to what standard; how they employ their “how to fight” doctrine and execute their battlefield functions; what the Soldiers, training, sustainment, and equipment life-cycle costs are; and the one-time procure- ment costs.
Another essential component of the baseline is describing what dependencies the organization or warfighting function relies on from other organizations or war- fighting functions to accomplish its missions.
It is from this baseline that one begins to establish the force moderniza- tion strategy of potential improvements and determines whether the capability improvements justify the associated costs.
Setting a Strategic Direction Once you know where you are, it is important to know where you are going. Army concepts and their associated implications for doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leader development and education, personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF) are critical to framing the strategic direction for force modernization.
A knowledge-based approach—getting more information earlier on operational requirements, costs, technical feasibility, and trade space—is key to achieving affordable force modernization and one that industry leaders have found to be highly successful.
But you must also stay linked to what Soldiers in the current fight need. These Soldiers at the “edge” provide the best feedback, lessons learned, and insights into where the Army needs to go.
This is also the hotbed for innovation, where opportunity, demand, and feed- back from the edge need to be linked in real time. Here, opportunity is clearly associated with the pace of technologi- cal change, and the demand is dictated by a very adaptive adversary.
Those engaged in the close fight have some of the best ideas for the needs. This means the Army must also stay closely linked to the technology com- munity so that we can lead innovation by keeping needs linked to oppor- tunities. And these needs and ideas must be quickly incorporated into the mainstream of emerging concepts and developments, to make them relevant to today’s fight while moving us closer to the force envisioned in our force modernization strategy.
The Army does this through warfight- ing forums, such as those led by U.S. Army Forces Command on Brigade Combat Teams; TRADOC Centers of Excellence on the other warfighter functions, signal, and aviation; and close cooperation with the U.S. Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command labs.
Closing the Gap, Affordably We are now at a point where we want to close the gap between where we are and where we are going. We want to make the Army more operationally adaptive and effective, but we must do it in a way that is affordable in the long run.
We must take a hard look at the quality of our acquisition personnel and increase the number and quality of contracting officers and civilian analysts; improve services contracting; and invest in generating contracting expertise at the general-officer level.
We must also increase our numbers and expertise in systems engineering, quality assurance, operations research and systems analysis, and cost estimating and contracting throughout the Army.
What we have learned from industry is that we must strive for more knowl- edge earlier in the acquisition cycle. Knowledge is power, and knowledge ear- lier is more power. A knowledge-based approach accelerates development and reduces the time required to produce and field solutions.
For potential materiel gaps, this requires the Army to assemble multi- disciplinary teams upfront and to form better and broader partnerships across the user, developer, and acquisition communities. The multidisciplinary teams should consist of scientists; engi- neers; costing, pricing, and purchasing experts; operators; testers; legal review- ers; and users (Soldiers). The assembling of this team during the initial design phase allows for greater fidelity and
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