From the Editor-in-Chief D
ata, data everywhere and not a datum to analyze (with apologizes to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Te Rime of the Ancient Mariner”). We are awash in data today. Your cellphone tracks your
steps; satellites give your exact location on Earth; your car sends updates on oil changes; and your credit cards monitor your spending habits—and that’s just you. Imagine you’re in busi- ness and you need to know the latest costs of goods, shipping and labor, not to mention customer purchasing habits, exchange rates, taxes, etc. You can track that! (How do you think Walmart Inc. or
Amazon.com Inc. “suggests” what you might want to buy, or a Facebook ad pops up with just what you didn’t know you needed? Data.)
Now, imagine you’re running the largest organization in the world, the Department of Defense, with more than 3 million people and a budget in excess of $700 billion per year. You need to make smart decisions on what to buy, what to make, pay raises, incentives, operating costs, and at every turn you need to be as efficient as possible with the taxpayers’ money. How? Data, or, more precisely, the facts or pieces of information we collect on everything from research, development, testing, engineering, contracting, maintenance and sustainment, to workforce skills, fund execution rates and program execution status—everything can be and is a data point.
And now, the rub: To make the best decisions based on data, you have to know what data you want, where it is, how to gather it and how to analyze it. You also need to make sure the data you get is “authoritative”—reliable and accurate. And, for the military, there’s one more hurdle—there are thousands upon thousands of data systems, and literally millions of users. Linking these systems and ensuring that the data is refreshed and maintained properly, entered correctly (no text where a number should be, or vice versa) and useful is a huge challenge. As Dr. Bruce D. Jette, the Army acquisition executive (AAE), points out in his column on Page 4, a great deal of data that the Army needs resides in spreadsheets on individual computers that aren’t part of a larger data system.
As with most things, the Army has a plan for getting data under control and using it to make the best decisions possible, and that is the focus of this issue: Army data from the foxhole to the
Pentagon. Te AAE is work- ing to create a holistic life cycle for acquisition data, and his office is developing the acquisition data domain. Maj. Mario Iglesias has the inside story on the domain’s development in “Data Is Decisive” on Page 8.
Find out how this frame- work will drive better decision-making. Ten, see how Army leaders might use all this data in the newly created Army Leader Dashboard (“Creating Insight-Driven Decisions,” Page 14). Also, Dr. Dan Stimpson from the office of the Army’s Director, Acquisition Career Management offers a thought- provoking look at the limitations of data, in “So Much Data, So Little Time” on Page 122.
@
Email Nelson McCouch III
ArmyALT@gmail.com
It’s not all about the data, though. In our continuing series, “ASA(ALT) at Work,” we have a fascinating profile on Page 22 of the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems, which is rolling out the Army’s new integrated pay and personnel system, and working to provide a dashboard whereby Army lead- ers can get the information they need about acquisition programs.
From one of the many authors with doctorates in this issue comes a provocative commentary from Dr. Gordon Cooke of West Point, formerly of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command. In “Magic Bullets” on Page 116, he looks at the future of artificial intelligence-powered weapons and the moral and ethical implications therein.
Find these and other interesting articles from around the Army acquisition community and beyond in this issue. If you have story ideas, comments or concerns for future issues, please drop us a note at
ArmyALT@gmail.com. We look forward to hear- ing from you.
Nelson McCouch III Editor-in-Chief
https://asc.ar my.mil
3
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156
