FROM THE DIRECTOR OF


ACQUISITION CAREER MANAGEMENT RONA LD R. R ICH A R DSON JR .


BETTER SOLUTIONS FASTER


MTA and OTA speed the process of get ting the best equipment into the hands of our Soldiers.


S even years.


Tat’s how long it used to take to go from a materiel development decision—the point at which a


capability gap has been identified and a decision has been made to find a mate- riel solution—to milestone C—the time when a decision must be made to enter the materiel solution into production and deployment. Over the years, we’ve seen programs that met every requirement, only to be canceled or restructured when they got into operational testing because they were too expensive or weren’t what the users wanted. We would go forward chasing a requirement that drove cost, complexity, time and schedule. Every- one had a say and anyone could slow you down. Acquisition was viewed by many in the operational force as a monolithic, bureaucratic and slow-rolling process that maybe would give our warfighters what they need.


Seven years…Maybe.


I believe that no American Soldier should ever be in a fair fight, anywhere—they


68 Army AL&T Magazine Winter 2022


should always have the advantage. Te best way to equip our Soldiers with the latest technology and game-changing capabil- ity today is through an iterative process that gives us the ability to look left and right—to expand our aperture, rather than moving forward with our heads down.


Alternative acquisitions give us that abil- ity. Te Adaptive Acquisition Framework (AAF) includes a variety of pathways that enable us to deliver effective, suitable, survivable, sustainable and affordable solutions to users in a timely manner. For example, the middle tier of acquisition (MTA) is one pathway within the frame- work that can be used to rapidly develop fieldable prototypes. Tere is also a full spectrum of available contract strategies and tools that can be leveraged based on environment, constraints and desired outcomes. Other-transaction authority (OTA) is one such tool that allows us to accelerate delivery of that capability to the force and better enable the Army to have access to cutting-edge technologies.


Two years.


TAKE NOTES


Soldier-centered design led to simple adjustments of the IVAS throughout its development, helping mitigate technical risk and ensuring the end product was what Soldiers wanted. (Photo by Courtney Bacon, PEO Soldier)


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