From the Editor-in-Chief S @
Email Nelson McCouch III
ArmyALT@gmail.com
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ometimes the themes for Army AL&T magazine are so conceptual that it is up to my marvelous editorial staff to interpret the ideas from the magazine’s Editorial Advisory
Board and pass that guidance on to you, our readers and contributors, in an effort not to end up with 160 blank pages. Tis is one of those issue themes: strategic acquisition.
“What’s that?” you say. “We’ve done agile acquisition, acquisition reform, innovative approaches to acquisition, etc., but never strategic acquisition. So, what’s different?”
You can slice and dice acquisition in myriad ways. While past issues of Army AL&T have looked at a specific aspect of acquisition, this issue focuses on acquisition holistically, at least in part because that’s something that almost never happens in DOD. Start with a greater vision of what the final product will be and how best to alter, reconfigure, modify and even recycle it with the desired end in mind—thinking from
“lust to dust,” as the former Army Acquisition Execu- tive, the Hon. Katrina McFarland, has said. Infuse that mindset into each step along the way, and you have stra- tegic acquisition.
Tink of strategic acquisition like a B-52 Stratofortress (pundits, take a breath): Te bomber is still in service 62 years since the original aircraft flew on Aug. 5, 1954, having been modified over the years to carry more weight with upgraded engines, different munitions (conventional, cruise missiles, nukes, etc.) and photore- connaissance or electronic capsules in the bomb bays, and upgraded with an advanced communications sys- tem. But at the end of the day, it’s the same platform as the original—reconfigured, modified and reimagined for use beyond 2040, according to Boeing. Tat’s a strategic bomber, but not a strategic acquisition.
Now imagine trying to envision all of what we have asked the B-52 to do—and how, eventually, to retire it—when it was nothing but a gleam in the Air Force’s eye. But that was in a different era of acquisition, when the enemy was clear and funding was plentiful. Te point is that not only does the U.S. military have to engineer the widget (our favorite abstraction for a product), but in the ideal world of acquisition, it must also engineer the acquisition itself.
So, now that budgets are tight, materials expensive and acquisition timelines simply too long, the Army Acquisition Workforce is being asked to do more than just make the widget. Now the acquisition mission is to think of the widget holistically—the multitude of pro- cesses, procedures, materials and uses that widget might have—and to create it to be more sustainable and scal- able, use more open standards, and be interoperable and more compatible with other, as-yet unidentified widgets that will meet future needs.
So, at least until President Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 into law on Dec. 23, less significant acquisition reform—which many doubt can work—has had to come from those who know acquisition best. Tat is exactly what the Army Acquisition Workforce is working to accomplish, with the help of industry, academia and other stakeholders.
Take a look at our “Critical Tinking” interview with Col. Peter Newell (USA, Ret.), who used to run the Rapid Equipping Force, and Jackie Space—managing partner and partner, respectively, of a company called BMNT Partners LLC—to learn what someone who knows how to get things done in acquisition thinks of the traditional acquisition process. Or take a look at
“Recalibrating Requirements,” in which we learn how the folks at the Army Capabilities Integration Center are taking multiple paths to reform the requirements generation process at the core of acquisition, because sometimes the widget is something simple—like a new boot, not a B-52—or something that industry may already have.
Speaking of keeping products useful well into the future, Army AL&T recently conducted its biennial readership survey, and the results are in. (See “Te Long and Short of It,” Page 11.) Te survey helps us continuously improve the magazine—your magazine—to meet current and future needs of the Army Acquisition Workforce. We use your comments, along with a commercial review of best magazine business practices, to ensure that Army AL&T continues to be a viable product well into the 21st century. If you have comments or missed the survey, please contact the magazine at ArmyALT@
gmail.com. We’ll be happy to consider your recommendations.
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Nelson McCouch III Editor-in-Chief
ASC.ARMY.MIL 5
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