invite members of industry to understand our business so that they can adequately address provisions that we put in our requirements documents. We want indus- try to understand what we in the Army do, and understanding them will help us do that as well.
Tat’s why we have a number of partner- ships with industry in a variety of areas. Tis includes big contractors, our feder- ally funded research and development centers, our work with universities, labo- ratories and industry associations and a number of efforts with small businesses.
AN INSIDE LOOK AT INDUSTRY
TWI and Education with Industry (EWI) fellows attend an Amazon Web Services business confer- ence in Tysons Corner, Virginia, on Sept. 27. From left are Maj. Chris Ehlers, Army operations research analyst and TWI fellow; Staff Sgt. Robert Staal, Air Force EWI fellow; Dalila Wortman, Amazon Web Services; and Maj. Desiree Dirige, Army acquisition TWI fellow. (Photo courtesy of Maj. Desiree Dirige)
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE HOW Understanding industry is an absolutely critical element of being a solid acquisition professional, and there are many aspects to it:
• How do companies develop their busi- ness strategies and operating plans?
• How do they determine costs and prices for their products?
• How do they find suppliers and subcontractors?
• How are their senior executives provided incentives, motivations and rewards?
• How do companies plan and prioritize investments and pursue government contracts?
• How are key financial ratios used to measure a company’s financial health?
• How do they employ different negoti- ating strategies?
To rapidly get a better, more affordable product to Soldiers who desperately need it today, we require a better understanding of what industry does and doesn’t provide, and what oversight is necessary.
A key component of understanding indus- try is making sure that we truly do partner with them. It’s clear that the decades-old philosophies that kept industry at arm’s length did not result in better outcomes for the Army. And yes, there are certain things that we must be careful to do to avoid the perception of impropriety, or impropriety itself. But we have to be good partners with industry. We have to
COMMUNICATION AND CREATIVITY As we work with industry, especially with nontraditional contractors, we need to be as creative as possible. Not every- thing has to be a long, drawn-out buy of a major acquisition system through traditional processes. We need to use underutilized acquisition approaches such as the rapid prototyping and rapid fielding made possible under Section 804 of the National Defense Authori- zation Act for Fiscal Year 2016 and other transaction authority, which provides more efficient acquisition of prototype systems involving nontraditional defense contractors.
We also need to be sensitive to intel- lectual property rights. We have to understand how industry views intellec- tual property in order to be able to buy what’s appropriate. We need to commu- nicate about equipment and engineering capabilities that come from a company’s independent research and development that we hadn’t even envisioned. Te vast majority of creative engineering develop- ment takes place in private industry, and quite a bit of that takes place in innova- tive small businesses.
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