THE CHALLENGES OF CHANGE


A MANDATE TO EXPERIMENT


Arkansas Army National Guard Soldiers operate a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck on their first day of simulated combat operations at the National Training Center in August 2015. The 12-day field training exercise, involving more than 5,200 Soldiers from National Guard, U.S. Army Reserve and active-duty Army units, is one example of the experimentation that the Army needs more of to develop and deliver technologies more rapidly to address current threats and shape smarter procurement strategies for the future. (Photo by Spc. Michael Germundson, 115th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment)


the first production vehicle below cost and ahead of schedule in October 2016. Te first vehicles will help reduce future produc- tion risk and serve as performance and operational test program assets to verify that requirements are met in the areas of reli- ability, transportability, survivability and networking. Tanks to outstanding program management, we expect to deliver all 49,099 Army JLTVs by the mid-2030s instead of the early 2040s, at roughly 15 percent less than planned—nearly $6 billion in savings—giving Soldiers and Marines much-needed capability and returning badly needed resources to invest in other mod- ernization priorities.


Strategic acquisition looks to meet the threats of today, tomor- row and the future with a more holistic approach across the acquisition life cycle and the entire Army enterprise. Te ques- tion to ask ourselves is, how do we create scalable sustainment, a flexible procurement system that successfully manages the infra- structure? We must think beyond fielding capability as the end goal—with roughly 70 percent of program costs then going into


8 Army AL&T Magazine January-March 2017


sustainment—and consider how the program may be recom- bined, repurposed or salvaged to benefit future systems. Te Army must think in terms broader than divestiture or demili- tarization—as with the procurement strategy for the M109A7 Self-Propelled Howitzer, which combines M109A6 turrets and a Bradley Fighting Vehicle system chassis.


WHAT IS ‘STRATEGIC ACQUISITION’? In the broadest context, “strategy” means examining the status quo, measuring the gap between that and the desired end state, and identifying the path to achieve that goal. “Strategic acqui- sition,” then, leads us to embrace the changes of acquisition reform and continue to build toward the most affordable and efficient processes to field capability. It is the business of making acquisition more efficient, more economical and more sensible.


Tanks to congressional advocacy, Army acquisition reform efforts in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act pro- vide warfighters with the best equipment when they need it. In


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