Research and Production Act


to use


OTA. Tis Section 815 OTA provides the legal framework and contractual means for C5 industry members to col- laborate with government customers and other members and subcontractors to provide innovative solutions for DOD. With over 400 industry representatives and established processes, C5 balances a collaborative environment, access to emerging technology providers and to nontraditional DOD innovation, and the potential to team with traditional DOD industry expertise.


Te consortia are designed to have broad technical focus areas to accommodate many different types of prototyping efforts. Te C5 process starts when the government user, such as an Army pro- gram manager (DCO, for example) provides the C5 Government Acquisi- tion Liaison Office at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, with a concise statement of needs. (See Figure 2, Page 217.) CMG notifies the C5 consortium members of a particular need in a request for white papers; those members that believe they have a good approach propose solutions. Te government reviews the industry white papers and may combine multiple ideas into a best-of-breed solution for a prototype.


Tis is unlike the traditional process, based on the Federal Acquisition Regu- lation, whereby the government generally must either select the contractor that is closest to its requirement or reject all proposals and restate the requirement— a time-consuming, “good enough” method. With the C5 OTA, the govern- ment collaborates with industry to put together a solution and optimizes innova- tion. Once they’ve agreed on the solution, they document their approach in an other transaction agreement. Te entire process, which generally takes about 90


DCO designed an evolving acquisition strategy with continual prototyping to test technologies, inform requirements, deliver capabilities and allow rapid technology insertion, thereby staying ahead of the ever-evolving threat.


days, allows the awardee to build the gov- ernment a proof-of-concept prototype and potentially continue with a follow- on production.


ANATOMY OF AN ACQUISITION Te DCO acquisition strategy takes advantage of flexibility in requirements and contracting methods to adopt prac- tices from rapid software and hardware development. DCO is delivering capa- bilities as an evolving “build” or “drop” every three to four months—not neces- sarily the complete solution but rather technology enhancements, improved efficiency or new specific-use capabilities that are assessed, refined and then inte- grated into the baseline capability. (See Figure 3.)


By using the C5 OTA, the product office can build continuous prototypes to assess capability gaps and insert mature tech- nologies into the baseline program. (See Figure 4, Page 220,) At the same time, the OTA prototyping strategy informs the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command capabilities manager and pro- vides the basis to discuss requirements, potentially refining key performance parameters by adjusting capability drop documentation under the IT Box construct. Te end result is the most


advanced capability that industry can provide, properly aligned with program requirements that integrate attributes of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities in a rapidly moving acquisition scenario.


DCO expects that using C5 and incor- porating OTA prototyping will result in acquisition of a capability that is:


• Better—Continuous prototyping will allow DCO to provide capabilities that respond to evolving needs and align properly with requirements.


• Faster—Timelines are at least 50 per- cent shorter, compared with traditional acquisition methods.


• Cheaper—Prototyping re duces a product’s life cycle costs by providing a tangible solution that can integrate with existing systems and be tested up front for long-term suitability before full production decisions and the asso- ciated expenses.


CONCLUSION In this era of expanding cyber technolo- gies and threats, as well as IT capabilities, traditional acquisition methods and approaches generally deliver obsolete capabilities too late and over budget.


ASC.ARMY.MIL 219


CONTRACTING


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