TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY APPROACH TO ACQUISITION
upon perfect predictions many years in advance of application by Soldiers. Vehicle requirements became fluid as operating environ- ment conditions changed or new requirements were added late in lengthy development cycles, causing cost projections to skyrocket.
Past efforts to develop a new infantry fighting vehicle to replace the Bradley in our armored brigade combat teams did not come to fruition. Tose efforts are well-documented elsewhere and do not need to be re-hashed here. What is important to note is that the Army is a learning organization. We learned from our past efforts and modified our approach to developing combat vehicles. With OMFV, the opportunity to change the historical dynamic is available thanks to more flexible and modern program manage- ment tools such as the middle tier of acquisition pathway and digital engineering.
THE RIGHT BALANCE Using these tools, the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Cross- Functional Team, the Project Manager for Mounted Combat Systems and the Ground Vehicle Systems Center crafted an approach to OMFV requirements development and refinement incorporating several key themes:
Communicating broad design characteristics for industry to focus their design capabilities and innovation on addressing our capability gaps, rather than requiring compliance with overly technical requirements, based on imperfect assumptions or legacy approaches. Te Army awarded contracts to five prime vendors to develop digital designs for the specific purpose of informing and maturing initial characteristics into more detailed require- ments. Te nine “characteristics of need,” in priority order, are: survivability, mobility, growth, lethality, weight, logistics, transportability, manning and training. In each of those nine areas, the Army challenged vendors to provide their best over- all solution.
Collaborative, rather than transactional engagements between government and industry. Tis approach allows government and industry to come together to a common under- standing of what technology is ready and affordable today vs. what is not yet ready for integration at scale and operational
implementation. Initially, some vendors were skeptical that the Army was serious about change, but close collaboration and open dialogue produced productive refinement of requirements. Model-based systems engineering and modular open system architecture standards enabled use of competing vendor concepts and digital designs to explore different approaches to the right balance between the needs for mobility, survivability, lethality, and, since this is an infantry fighting vehicle, how many Soldiers can feasibly be delivered safely onto an objective.
Requirements analysis and definition. Over a period of 12 months with five vendor digital designs, the Army completed 11 distinct analytical efforts—ranging from fuel consumption expectations to survivability against known threats. Trough these efforts, the Army provided vendors four revisions of draft performance specifications, received over 2,000 comments from government and industry technical experts, conducted three digi- tal design reviews with each vendor, and had four total months of Soldier touch points providing user feedback on vendor designs.
Modeling and simulation. Vendor digital designs assessed through government modeling and simulation tools refined the nine broad characteristics of need into 28 detailed and prioritized attributes. We were able to see, question and understand rela- tionships between performance and cost across engineering and operational expectations well before committing to expensive, long lead physical prototypes. By placing Soldiers into virtual OMFVs, the Army was able to determine if the vehicle designs were realistic and feasible. We were able to run extensive simula- tions to explore the impacts of different decisions and proposals to determine if our requirement prioritization is correct.
Soldier centered design. Soldiers from Armored brigade combat teams engaged directly with virtual designs, and later with virtual prototypes and physical models. Te Ground Vehi- cle Systems Center created virtual environments for Soldiers to experience each vendor’s approach. Soldiers directly helped engi- neers and designers understand how human performance with new capabilities and design requirements influence desired system effectiveness objectives. Te value of gaining these Soldier inputs early in the process cannot be overemphasized.
“This approach brings a stability of requirements to the process—nobody has to guess what the requirements will be.”
34 Army AL&T Magazine Fall 2022
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