​The Services have lots of ideas for AI. But it has to implement them without overwhelming troops or the network with too many apps and too much data.

There are tremendous number of potential military applications for AI, from the battlefield to the back office. The trick is not overwhelming the users with too many different specialized apps to figure out and not overwhelming the network with too much data moving back and forth.

Army has launched a new effort, dubbed Project Quarterback, to accelerate tank warfare by synchronizing battlefield data with the aid of artificial Intelligence. 

The project aims for an AI assistant that can look out across the battlefield, taking in all the relevant data from drones, radar, ground robots, satellites, cameras mounted in soldier goggles, etc., and then output the best strategy for taking out adversaries with whatever weapons available. 

Quarterback, in other words, would help commanders do two things better and faster, understand exactly what’s on the battlefield and then select the most appropriate strategy based on the assets available and other factors. 
Just the first part of that challenge is huge. The amount of potentially usable battlefield data is rapidly expanding, and it takes a long time to synchronize it. 

Building Battle Strategies

AI can a quickly potential lines of sight between different points of the battlefield. That’s why the AI Task Force is working on a “fields of fire” AI that uses the new IVAS targeting goggles to determine what area each soldier can cover with their weapons. 

The AI tools would compile that data for the whole squad, platoon, company, or even battalion, giving commanders a map of exactly what approaches were defended and where any potential blind spots lie. Another potential application of this same technology would be to analyze potential fields of fire from suspected or confirmed enemy positions to identify the safest routes past them.

Ultimately, the Army is looking for a lot more than a data visualizer. They want AI to help with battle strategy.  “How do you want to make decisions based on battlefield data? How do you want to select the most efficient way to engage a target, based on probability of hit, probability of kill? Do you have indirect fire assets available to you that you can request? 

Do you have real assets that you can request? Can I you my wingman… or, does the computer then recommend, ‘Red One, our wingman should take that target instead of you for x, y reasons?’ That goes back to that concept of how you make a more informed decision, faster. And who is making that decision could be a tank commander or it could be a battalion commander.

“Sensor to shooter? It’s the network. The synthetic training environment? It’s the network. IVAS is the network. If there’s one thing that’s cross cutting everything we’re working on, it’s the network. The bandwidth requirements, the latency we can’t have, there’s a lot of technical hurdles to overcome with that.”

Data from Sensors

Shooting down drones, aiming tank guns, coordinating resupply and maintenance, planning artillery barrages, stitching different sensor feeds together into a single coherent picture, analyzing how terrain blocks units’ fields of fire and warning commanders where there are blind spots in their defenses are all uses that will be tested.

“All the vast array of current and future military sensors, aviation assets, electronic warfare assets, network assets, unmanned aerial, unmanned ground systems, next generation manned vehicles and dismounted soldiers will detect and geolocate an enemy on our battlefield. 

AI Task Force is focused on intelligence support to operations, where we’re using offboard data” – that is, data gathered from a wide range of sensors, not just those onboard one aircraft or vehicle to look for targets.”

Using Data Effectively

We need an AI system to help identify that threat, aggregate data on the threat with other sensors and threat data, distribute it across our command and control systems and recommend to our commanders at echelon the best firing platform for the best effects, be it an F-35, an extended range cannon or a remote controlled vehicle.

The idea is to pull data from a host of sources; curate it by putting it into standard formats, throwing out bad data, and so on; and create a central repository — not only for the data but for a family of AI models trained on that data. Users across the Army could download those proven algorithms and apply them to their own purposes.

This means a lot of data moving back and forth over the Army network. Modernizing that network is a major Army priority and the service is developing major increases in satellite bandwidth for its upcoming update. But the AI Task Force is also looking to reduce those data demands wherever possible.

Network Challenges

There are concerns about getting all of those systems to link up and share massive amounts of data.  “The thing that keeps us up at night is the network. “It’s not problems within the network, it’s that we’re relying on the network for so much”

“There are some huge autonomy challenges, but one of the greatest challenges we’re going to have is the network. On the ground, when you have robots wanting to talk to other robots, wanting to talk to ground vehicles and you go behind the hill, you go behind the rock, you go down in the gully; you’re in a city and you go around the corner of the building.

The Army has had bad luck trying to institute large-scale data standards. Case in point: the Joint Tactical Radio System program spent billions in a fruitless attempt to buy a single radio to serve all of its communications needs. 

Some time ago, military mandated the Commercial Mobile Device Implementation Plan — essentially an effort to lower its data-transfer costs by using commercial networks for unclassified data. But as the current debate over 5G networking shows, even commercial cellular providers are having trouble getting ahead of what they see as future demand. 

“This is commercial technology that everyone uses and relies on and so we are trying to take some of that and pass full-motion video in some cases. This is a big technological challenge and everyone is going to say, ‘I’ve got a radio that will do it.’ Fine, as long you’re 100 feet apart and can see each other. So that’s going to continue to be our biggest challenge because we just haven’t fixed the physics yet.

Techniques are being developed to inspect networks and see why these networks might come up with a certain recognition or solution or something like that” 

There’s  important emerging research in fencing off neural networks and deep learning systems while they learn, including neural networks in robots, “How we can put this physical structure or constraints into these networks so that they learn within the confines of what we think is physically okay.”

Troops in the Loop

Commanders and soldiers will have to become more comfortable with robots and software that produce outputs via processes that can’t be easily explained, even by the programers that produced them.

You could feed the AI surveillance imagery of “a forested area” and ask it, “show me every tank you see in the image.” The AI would rapidly highlight the targets – far faster than a human imagery analyst could go through the same volume of raw intelligence – and pass them along to troops to take action.

Military networks have so many thousands of users and devices that just figuring out what is connected at any given time is a challenge, let alone sifting through the vast amounts of network traffic to spot an ongoing intrusion. For all its faults, AI is much better than humans at quickly sorting through such masses of data.

The way to develop that trust is the same way humans develop trust in one another, slowly and with a lot of practice. “Most humans are not as explainable as we like to think… If you demonstrate to a soldier that the tool or the system that you are trying to enable them with generally functions relatively well and adds some capability to them… they will grow trust very, very rapidly.” 

But, when it comes to big decision aids, “that will be much harder. “You trust something because it works, not because you understand it. The way that you show it works is you run many, many, many tests, build a statistical analysis and build trust that way. 

That’s true not only of deep learning systems but other systems as well that are sufficiently complex. You are not going to prove them correct. You will need to put them through a battery of tests and then convince yourself that they meet the bar.’ 

Implementation Directions

In the meantime, the Army will work with the network it has until more capability comes online at a price it can afford. You can’t just walk away from what you had because we invested a lot of money into the network. And so thickening, augmenting, improving the network with commercial solutions, and in short increments so you can capture the very best technology you possibly can.”

Consider self-driving cars as an everyday example. AI matches drivers with customers, but each individual user isn’t actually sending or receiving all that data. It boils down to “here I am, I want a ride to there” or “here I am, I’m willing to give someone a ride this far.” Likewise, a combat vehicle could transmit “here I am, I have this much ammunition, I have this much fuel. Please send supplies ASAP.”

You can extend this principle to even more complex functions like spotting targets or predicting breakdowns. If you put enough processing power and software on the frontline platforms themselves – a concept called “edge computing” – they can analyze complicated input from their own sensors and only send a summary report back over the network, rather than having to transmit raw data to some central supercomputer for analysis. 

A vehicle could send, “I need X maintenance in Y hours,” for example, rather than every bit of data collected by the diagnostic sensors on its engine. Or a drone could send “I see tanks here, here, and here, and a missile launcher there” rather than transmit full-motion video of everything in view.

Now, not every present-day weapons system is smart enough to do the analysis by itself. Many systems don’t even have sensors to collect data, and installing them would be prohibitively expensive. “We can’t afford to retrofit all our Humvees from 30 years ago.

So one of the task force’s priorities will be to ensure that all the Army’s new weapons systems, from long-range missile launchers to targeting goggles, can collect and transmit the right kind of data on their own performance. That means embedding enough computing power to perform a lot of analysis at the edge, rather than having to transmit masses of data to a central location.

Big data gets a lot of attention and can put a lot of strain on networks. But, for many applications, we can just start little.”

1. Integration with existing processes

All the processes running in business are different from one another. So, the process that is automated should seamlessly integrate with the existing processes. The integration can happen at various levels of the automation process but it is essential for all the automation processes to work smoothly with the environment.

2. Consistency

The automated processes should be consistent with other processes and their corresponding inputs and outputs.

3. Step by step approach

It is not necessary to perform the automation of all the necessary tasks at once. Depending on funds, resources and overall logic of the business processes, you can divide the job into several stages.

4. Process flexibility

Over a period of time, business processes tend to change. The automation solutions should be flexible enough to incorporate and reflect these changes.

5. Simplicity

The aim of automation is to make the business processes simpler and not more complicated. If after automation, the process requires a lot of human intervention, you must understand that something is wrong.
6. Training the staff

For efficient functioning of business processes, it is important for the staff to have a complete understanding of the workflow. The better they know a process, the better it will function.

7. Reduce business process automation operational costs

Running a business is costly . Automation can substantially help in reducing cost and increasing profitability. However, most of the people find it difficult to choose tasks for automation. Well, any task that that doesn’t require human thought process but just a series of steps that can be predicted using computer logic can be chosen for automation.

8. Complete conventional tasks 

Paper processes can be completed using automation. These days, you can digitally sign documents, sign contracts and also easily manage organizational expenses using various tools available in the market making it easier to manage the flow of work. 

9. Avoiding mistakes

Rectification errors cost businesses a ton of money every year. The greater the rate of error more is the cost for rectification. A small misconfiguration can expose vulnerabilities to attackers or disrupt business processes.

Automation can help you in improving efficiency and ensuring accuracy. You can take basic tasks out of human hands and engage their brain more into developing strategies and more important functions.

10. Deliver superior customer service

With major advancements in the field of technology, today, the way customer service is provided has changed a lot. Using artificial intelligence, you can create great customer service that will answer all of their questions directly and provide the team working at the back end with required information and resources.
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Automated customer service can help you greatly reduce the response time. Time zone constraints do not affect automated customer service. Robots can help in responding to customer queries almost instantly, something which human support cannot guarantee. Thus customers no longer have to wait for hours just to get a response and virtual assistants will be able to predict what customers are looking for by tracking their actions and understanding their needs. 

​Marine Corps is identifying ways to reduce manpower-intensive logistics requirements — reducing and removing manned transportation assets is critical Unmanned air, ground, surface and subsurface “technologies are the way of the future and will … improve the sustainment of our forces.

Robotic systems can help reduce warfighters’ presence on the ground in dangerous areas. “Robots going into these areas ... have the dexterity and the capabilities to clear rubble,. These technologies have features that can be directly applied to robotic systems on the battlefield. 

Unmanned platforms could be used to complement Marines working at forward arming and refueling points in remote locations. Such technology is already present in industry, like exoskeletons that provide support to manufacturing lines. 

“That's the small, lethal footprint that required to get after for this logistics concept that we seek. The Navy is also examining how it can integrate unmanned vessels into its logistics fleet. 

Specifically, the Navy and Marine Corps are looking at how they can leverage medium and large-size vessels for logistics operations, “We don't have specific requirements or specific plans as of this moment, but that's going to be a big growth area for the Navy and Marine Corps over the next couple years.” 

Additionally, the Navy is working to ensure that its logistics enterprise is able to support all warfighting functions “with increased speed, agility and survivability. The service is employing multiple lines of effort to do so, which include diversifying distribution, improving sustainment, enabling logistics awareness, optimizing installations and supporting sustained operations.

Future fighting environments will push sea bases further from fleet Marine forces ashore. That means there will be a need for long-range connector capabilities that can operate from sea bases hundreds of miles off the coast. The services will also need to make its equipment lighter and more economical to use.

Robotic Applications

The Army’s future plans rely a lot not just on AI but also on ever-more-intelligent ground robots. Right now, a single Army operator can control about two ground robots. The Army’s plans are to get that ratio to one human to a dozen robots. 

That will require those future ground robots to not just collect visual data but actually perceive the world around them, designating objects in their field of perception. Those robots will have to make decisions with minimal human oversight as well since the availability high-bandwidth networking is hardly certain. 

Team ran robotic experiments where ground robots demonstrated that they could collect intelligence, maneuver autonomously and even decipher what it meant to move “covertly,” with minimal human commands. The robot learns and applies labels to objects in its environment after watching humans. 

Army is determined to field a mid-sized combat robot vehicle, but the prototypes are outstripping the datalinks that would connect them.

One prototype is a  10-ton, 20-foot electrically-powered treaded minitank that can carry a small aerial drone on its back and can pop a smaller ground robot out of a front compartment. Army leaders say that they’ve also been experimenting with battle concepts that combine soldiers, unmanned tanks, and small UAVs

Beyond its quest for semi-autonomous ground robots, the Army is looking into more and more data-intensive gear, such as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS, a set of augmented-reality goggles intended to give soldiers a lot of visual real time data to help with tasks like targeting during operations, and also with training and simulation during downtime. 

That’s also supposed to hook up with data feeds from tanks or other robots. But the rush to develop and field the newest tech concepts, and to integrate heavy amounts of data into all facets of operation, have driven the Army’s data needs skyward. 

Open architecture will allow the Army to upgrade its communications and data networking as needed, as well as to incorporate higher levels of autonomy, as those capabilities emerged. Teams experimented with integrating ground and aerial robots with the Ripsaw, but not yet in a communications-denied environment, in part because the Army has not yet published their specific needs for future mid-sized robot combat vehicles. 

Robots may help extend solid data connectivity further afield, serving as flying or rolling cellular towers in a moving mesh network. “We’re also looking at unmanned vehicles to expand the network, to expand the line of sight so we can push these robots out as far as possible. So that they get in the riskiest places on earth and the soldier. 

Manoeuvre Roadmap will forward strategies by listing the types of AI that will be needed year-to-year to support military strategy and maintain a firm understanding of what AI is and how it will be used to benefit the organisation. This understanding should go beyond buzzwords and definitions. 

The trickier and more relevant question for many is: How will it do so, when it will do so, and in which markets and applications will it have the most impact? Certainly, professional computing applications  and virtual work spaces are among those most clearly in the crosshairs of machine learning and professional spaces

“There's a reason for the confusion between Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning“
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Vendors are rushing AI solutions to market before the ultimate decision-makers and buyers are up to speed on what they need. But the plot thickens when Military Leaders are asked about the specifics of what AI can accomplish—and how AI differs from machine learning and deep learning.

Very quickly,  technology leaders recognize that they need to put AI and its various subcategories e.g., machine learning, deep learning into practice—and into a common business vocabulary that everyone can understand.

The first step is communicating what the definitions are for AI, machine learning ML, and deep learning. There is some argument that AI, ML, and deep learning are each individual technologies. Leaders must view AI/ML/deep learning as successive stages of computer automation and analytics that are built on a common platform.

On the first tier of this platform sits AI, which analyzes data and quickly delivers analytical outcomes to users. 

Machine learning sits on the tier two application of AI that not only analyzes raw data, but it also looks for patterns in the data that can yield further insights. 

Deep learning is a third-tier application that analyzes data and data patterns, but it goes even further. The computer also uses advanced algorithms developed by data scientists that ask more questions about the data with the ability to yield even more insights.

The best way to demonstrate these different layers of increasingly complex analytics is by finding a business example that can show the benefits to the decision makers in the business.

Let's take the sample of traffic planning.

Tier one: AI

You develop an AI application that tells your traffic engineers and planners where the major traffic congestion points are located in the city. This assists them in planning for road repairs, stop lights, and other infrastructure that, hopefully, can relieve congestion in certain areas.

Tier two: Machine learning

You further develop your AI/analytics so that it also looks for patterns in the data. For instance, it notices the traffic at certain intersections is most congested in the morning between 6 am and 8 am, or that traffic queues up in the evening, ahead of a sporting event.

Knowledge of the situation gives planners and engineers more insight because now they can plan not only for traffic snarls but also for future events like football and hockey games.

Tier 3: Deep learning

Deep learning is where data analytics moves beyond raw data and data patterns. Deep learning adds specific algorithms that data scientists develop to further expand the querying and insights derived from the data.

Algorithms that could be added to the traffic analysis might include: What areas of the city will see the greatest population growth over the next ten years? Or, which roads will need major repairs in the next five years? Or, do weather projections say that we will have more or less snow over the next five years? By adding these algorithms on top of pattern and data analyses, users get a more complete picture of the situation they are trying to act on and assess.

Putting it all together into an AI roadmap

Being able to break down the differences between AI, machine learning, and deep learning is important because it shows Leaders not only the different tiers and capabilities of AI automation but also the increasing levels of business insights that can be gained from it. 

By visualising these different AI tiers into a strategic roadmap, an organisation can measure tangible results for mission objectives.

So a city, for instance, can say that next year it will have a comprehensive understanding of its road system, and where the traffic congestion is located. In year two, the city will be able to predict traffic jams from rush hour and special event traffic and be able to proactively inform travelers to use alternate routes. And in year three, the city will be able to develop plans for the future by assessing population/traffic growth and infrastructure repair shutdowns.

New contract to apply artificial intelligence to Marine Corps maintenance could streamline logistics and help lessen dependence of fighting forces from long supply lines. Ultimately, AI could enable the far-ranging manoeuvres envisioned by the multi-domain operations concept.

Most debate about military AI centers on robots, but professionals usually talk logistics. Without fuel, ammunition, spare parts, and maintenance, no weapon, manned or unmanned, is going anywhere.

What’s more, while AI has made great progress in recognising objects/targets and navigating the physical world, autonomous combat robots are far in the future.

Marines will apply AI-driven “predictive maintenance” to part of its aging fleet troop carriers equipped with diesel engines, heavy-duty transmissions, and other features with hundreds million hours of metrics on diesel engines alone, and in the world of AI machine learning, the more metrics you have, the more accurate your predictions get.

The concept of self-driving cars has been around for years, but only recently have increasing advances in networking, satellites, and laser equipment made this dream a reality. 

Vehicle manufacturers realized that they could use camera systems to relay data to an onboard computer that would process images of the road and create responses. Although we do not have robotic vehicles filling our roadways as of yet, some vehicles already contain numerous autonomous features that make driving easier and safer than ever before. Some models offer assisted parking or braking systems that activate automatically if they sense an issue. Vehicles can sense lane position and make adjustments there as well.

1. Reduce the number of accidents that occur on roadways.

When we are riding along in a driverless car, then what happens on the road is no longer subject to the numerous bad behaviors that human drivers exhibit as they attempt to reach their destination. A great majority of automobile crashes are as a result of human error. If computers are in more control, then there could be fewer behavioral incidents, costs that are associated with damage and help to reduce overall driving times.

While autonomous trucks aren't yet completely safe and accident-proof, especially in certain weather environments and road conditions, various reports that have been conducted claim that they will lead to a significant decrease in accidents compared to human-driven trucks. 

2. Driverless cars could work with higher speed limits.

As human populations move toward the use of driverless cars, it may become possible to raise the speed limit that vehicles can drive on extended trips. The computers would calculate the operations of the automobile to ensure the occupants remain safe. That means passengers could take care of other needs while the vehicle does the work of transportation without compromising the safety of the people who are on the roadways.

Higher Speed limits might be considered as an option if more people are using self-driving cars. Since the computers calculate operation of the vehicle safely, driving time could be reduced by faster speeds allowed on the road.

3. It could reduce the amount of fuel that we consume for transportation needs.

Computers would make it possible for driverless cars to maximize the fuel economy of every trip in multiple ways. Platooning would allow for the vehicles to draft with one another to reduce the effort that the engines would need to work while on the road. Real-time updates to driving conditions could help automobiles avoid high-traffic areas, places where weather disruptions are possible, and other potential hazards in the road. Because these vehicles would likely communicate with each other while on the roadway, they could ensure that everyone reaps these rewards of this advantage while still providing a higher level of safety.

4. Driverless vehicles could reduce commute times.

Because a driverless car would likely communicate with the other vehicles around it and the roadway, it would know where to maximize speed and movement to ensure the quickest possible commute. Other automobiles would react when a vehicle needed to exist a highway, for example, preventing the need to force oneself into lanes, cutoff drivers, or miss an exit. Vehicles could travel in bumper-to-bumper platoons while automatically merging to accommodate oncoming traffic.

5. Decrease in Traffic Jams and Congestion

Another often overlooked advantage that autonomous trucks can provide is that they can greatly reduce traffic jams and congestion, especially on highways. That's because autonomous trucks will be programmed to take the most optimal route and will also not be susceptible to delayed human reactions that often lead to traffic backups.

Because self-driving cars are rarely involved in accidents, their potential to ease congestion is high. Not only that, because self-driving cars can communicate with each other, they would eliminate the need for traffic signals. By driving at a slower rate but with less stops, better coordinated traffic would lead to less congestion.

7. Cost Savings

An advantage is that autonomous trucks can result in cost savings to the companies that use them. Of course, there will be a large upfront investment in buying a vehicle that's capable of autonomous driving, but over time, this is expected to pay off through a combination of increased efficiency and a decrease in drivers that have to be paid.

:8. Nearly No Error

The incredibly complicated technology behind self-driving cars lets the on board computer make hundreds of calculations a second. These include how far you are from objects, current speed, behaviour of other cars, and location on the globe. These super accurate readings have virtually eliminated driving errors for test cars on the road, as the only accidents so far are while human drivers have been in control.

A computer might not be 100% perfect, but it is far closer to that standard than a human driver could ever be. By using complex algorithms that guide the vehicle in the correct lane, calculate the appropriate stopping distance, and other information that’s available while on the road, there is a significant decrease in the risk of an automobile accident when using this technology.

9. Less space in between vehicles

Autonomous cars allow vehicles can ride closer together, therefore allowing more cars on the road with actually less traffic. We could drive faster with driverless vehicles on the road.

Because computers would be handling the driving responsibilities for long-distance trips, the design of our highway system would support a higher speed limit on straight stretches of road. That means we could arrive at our destinations faster without increasing the risk of an accident. Each autonomous vehicle could calculate its distance between vehicles, determine the highest and safest possible speed.

10. Sensor technology 
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Sensors could potentially perceive the environment better than humans could, seeing farther ahead, better in poor visibility, and detecting smaller and more subtle obstacles. Plus, several cameras might be used at once, and cameras have no blind spots, so they will be more aware and vigilant than a human driver ever could be.

​AI can maximize integration of complex communications networks for warfighters and ensure the message gets through to save the battle and win the war. 

There are significant risks to consider with such a powerful capability. Mitigation of  network attack or data breach of the Artificial Intelligence capability can manage exposure of every tactical, operational, and strategic vulnerability to enemy exploitation. Another risk could be the loss of control of the Artificial Intelligence capability  system, causing the system to deny all warfighter communications capabilities – such an occurrence would rewind the clock returning communications management to its largely human-led process as it is today.

The Artificial Intelligence capability  concept is ahead of technology. The capability does not exist today, and critical support research and resourcing decisions to even pursue something as powerful as an artificial intelligence capability.

There is plenty of reason for optimism about future autonomous AI systems. The Artificial Intelligence capability  concept leverages the link between AI and deep learning. AI systems trained to learn and think independently will likely dominate the field of AI. The key to deep learning is access to large, high-quality datasets.”

High speed robot and autonomous capabilities will become features of future battlefields.  Army needs these capabilities to manage all warfighting functions – especially command and control — to win the next war. It depends on systems that rapidly and reliably communicate with our troop formations. Artificial Intelligence capability  offers an ‘always-on’ connection to command and control these complexities. 

Even lower fidelity versions can help with training and mission planning. On those lines, the synthetic training environment will start distributing One World Terrain as they work out the data management and data storage hurdles.

The trainer is looking at alternatives both for the engagement system that runs the shooting devices and the devices themselves. As the Army works to deliver new synthetic training technology, it recently set up a new network to more effectively integrate software into the program.

The synthetic training environment is a 3D training and mission rehearsal tool that brings together live, virtual, constructive and gaming environments to improve soldier and unit readiness. 

The new training environment is network dependent and will interface with operational networks and network-enabled platforms. For now, the cross-function team is working to ensure it can stay on a glide path to reach initial operating capability in line with the current schedule,.

Behind the eye-grabbing new night vision, more lethal artillery and faster aviation being developed by the Army’s new cross functional teams sits a group that gets little attention but without which many soldiers would be grabbing blindly in the dark on the battlefield.

The Assured Position, Navigation and Timing trainer has the task of figuring out how to find ways to move friendly troops safely in hotly contested terrain and also help connect a lots of systems to put the right effects at the right time and place in the most precise way.

Teams have built a camera that sees through dust, helping pilots better guide and land in desert environments.
Something that’s taken for granted, the signal strength on a cell phone, for instance, isn’t something that’s readily available to soldiers using navigation or even targeting equipment. It takes specialists in certain areas to even detect and evaluate if a system is being jammed.

Efforts are working toward a way for any user of any such equipment to see their own signal strength and jamming concerns. Teams are working mounted, dismounted and situational awareness efforts currently. Soldiers will, for the first time, have an alternate way to navigate built into their vehicles that’s not GPS.

There’s also work to consolidate systems. Past equipment development often meant that each system had its own GPS. That’s created scenarios in which a single vehicle with multiple tracking, targeting and communications systems could have seven or more GPS antennae poking out.

If those efforts are successful, it can give tactical-level units beyond line-of-sight capabilities for a variety of uses without GPS. One piece of kit that’s currently under development might not seem, at first glance, like something that most infantry and close combat troops would put at the top of their list. But they should.

That’s because the Adaptive Squad Architecture program is an effort to tie together all of the current and future tech soldiers wear or carry and more. By powering all devices and using one processor, the move could streamline and lighten kit for the individual soldier.

What the squad will do is manage power and signals, and network what a soldier sees from their goggles to their weapon to their radio and what they’re linked into both within and outside of the squad.

And it means more than just what that soldier can see. It has effects on what their commanders can do, too. We give commanders more options than they ever had before, because through the data analysis a commander can best spread the load of equipment through the formations and account for the flood of variables that face the soldier and squad.

Essentially, the architecture becomes kind of a smartphone hub for the soldier and squad that can take on applications, algorithms and other measures to not just evaluate but also improve performance.

Teams will soon launch “Watchtower,” an Army app story similar to what smartphone users access. Within that, a lot of experimentation can take place, and leaders can tailor apps to their unit configurations and specific missions.

One example is soldier load.

Future ammunition is expected to be lighter. So, the commander has a decision to make: carry the same weight but with more rounds, or reduce the weight to the rounds they’ve always carried, keeping fatigue down and performance up?

The system can also use seemingly endless data to see if different weapons systems or communications gear match up, are redundant or ineffective.

Does the squad leader need an M4 or an M249, based on the mission? Does the squad need to carry HF communications gear or can it make do on this mission with satellite and VHF comms only? Those are some examples that the data can help mission planners explore.

And beyond the squad, the aim is to have squad “talk” wirelessly with platforms that the soldiers are riding in, from Bradleys and Strykers to new helicopters and future vehicles. Developers envision a day when the soldier boards a chopper or vehicle and the systems automatically start charging batteries and uploading their data while downloading new information from the larger network.

Squads to tap into cellular networks and battle-track on tablets at network trials. The gear will include lighter and faster communication equipment, battle-tracking applications on tablets and new ways to communicate with one another, as well as partner forces. 

By using a secure-but-unclassified architecture, soldiers can tap into commercial cellular networks, like 4G, and a greater range of wavelengths, depending on the electronic threat environment.

Field Teams are getting new capabilities that include advance networking waveforms, which significantly improves our mobile ad hoc networking capability at the lowest tactical echelon.”

The soldiers will begin collective training at the squad-level to view live-streaming full-motion video from unmanned aerial vehicles through an app on approved smartphones. Dismounted troops will get 3D digital maps and the ability to send precision target coordinates.

“Ultimately it’s going to take a hard look at if we have the right radios in the right places” “Are the new capabilities really adding enough capability to justify price points and overall cost of the networks. 

It’s not a new or separate network, but instead uses existing devices and gateways alongside commercial off-the-shelf products to make sure communications can continue even in limited bandwidth environments and amid electronic attacks.

“One thing we know for sure is the capabilities we’re pursuing are better, definitely better than what we had.  "And soldiers that don’t have it today are chomping at the bit to get it.”

But the amount and specific types of gear needed for infantry, Stryker and armor brigade combat teams do vary and so each type will require different approaches to fielding equipment.

“User feedback, leader feedback and running these through a series of exercises, to include force on force combat training center rotations, will give us that kind of feedback we need to make the best decisions.

“This environment allows us to secure the network, but pass data to where, if it’s perishable time sensitive data, we can actually share it with unified action partners. “That allows us to connect better with teammates and give troops more waveform options, regardless of who they’re working with.

“If we go somewhere where we believe we can leverage the infrastructure, we can and we will. But if there’s a concern ... we have the ability to do some workaround and show up in an area and rapidly “plug and play” into the existing infrastructure is key.

1. Improved Analytics and Better Data

Realistically, you can’t track much data pertaining to human workers. Sure, you can measure their output and productivity in a variety of ways, but the information you collect is not always reliable either.

It’s the complete opposite with robotics and advanced automation systems. As they work, they collect data about anything and everything, which serves as an incredible database of information that you can put to use. It leads to better decision making with more successful outcomes. It reveals a lot more about your processes and it can help you unlock new avenues of improvement. Essentially, the more data you have the better. But it also has to be accurate, error-free, and reliable and that’s something automated systems can definitely provide.

2. Increasing productivity

A robot has the ability to work at a constant speed, unattended, 24/7. That means you’ve got the potential to produce more. New products can be more quickly introduced into the production process and new product programming can be done offline with no disruption to existing processes. 

Robot have been designed to handle routine functions while maintaining long-term precision to increase productivity without affecting quality with automated workers in place. Improving supply chain productivity can deliver significant value to warehouse robots. They can increase accuracy, accelerate routine processes, and solve a number of common problems with employees when used side-by-side.

Conventional operation consists of manual labor, such as product handling, cart pushing and equipment operation. Employees walked the entire pick path then guided the pushcart to the packaging area for staging. With an autonomous and smart-picking solution, employees remain in specific zones while the robotic units travel between pick and put operations. Because each robot is responsible for delivering products from the employee to the packaging area, the distance each employee travels during a standard shift is considerably reduced as well. 

3. Increased Quality Assurance/Reducing mistakes 

The use of robots in the warehouse means that there is little chance of errors in relation to human labor. In addition to errors, this system reduces the time taken to go to different parts of the warehouse only. That is why employees focus more on quality control.

Robots will always deliver quality. Since they’re programmed for precise, repetitive motion, they’re less likely to make mistakes. In some ways, robots are simultaneously an employee and a quality control system. A lack of quirks and preferences, combined with the eliminated possibility of human error, will create a predictably perfect action product every time.

Robotic automation eliminates risks by accurately producing and checking items meet the required standard without fail. With more product going out the door manufactured to a higher standard, this creates a number of new business possibilities for companies to expand upon.

4. Improving safety

Robots don’t need to be with people 24/7. They can work with programmed sensors to avoid other robots and objects. This benefit reduces the chances of serious accidents that could affect a worker’s safety. Some of the most common damage to warehouse employees is caused by collapsing pallet racks, slips, and trips, and often high ladders drop. Warehouse robots eliminate these common risks for employees who are able to handle climbing, pick-up, packaging, and move around the warehouse.

“Employee safety can be improved in highly hazardous environments. In distribution center robots can seamlessly zip past each other, humans, or other moving objects thanks to advanced collision avoidance capabilities, which are processed as quickly as any human can react to potential accidental run-ins.

Safety is the most obvious advantage of utilizing robotics. Heavy machinery, machinery that runs at hot temperature, and sharp objects can easily injure a human being. By delegating dangerous tasks to a robot, you’re more likely to look at a repair bill not other costs. Employees who work dangerous jobs will be thankful that robots can remove some of the risks.

5. Easier scheduling/implementation 

Traditional workers need breaks for rest and energy rehabilitation. But robots don’t need breaks. They can work throughout a long shift. Robots provide flexibility, easily retooled and repositioned for new production programs and can easily be redeployed in new applications with ability to easily switch between a wide range of products without having to completely rebuild production lines

Robots can be realistically implemented, depending on the specifics of the operation. This is a remarkably small amount of time even at the spectrum’s high end, particularly when compared to other technologies. 

6. Ability to scale

Since robots are relatively easy to install in a facility, you can use a modular deployment system, starting with a few units and adding more as your business increases and needs change. This allows you to avoid an incredibly high initial investment, as you can start with one or two and increase your floor over time rather than buy a large number of robots at once. This modular deployment frees you from the capital to pursue other initiatives, analyzing robots ‘ impact on your business, and taking the next steps.

Any process, system, or platform that is rule-based and includes repetitive tasks or operations can be automated, in full, using robotics. That also means you — as a business — can be just as versatile. There is a nearly endless supply of opportunities in regards to how you can use the technology, and it can be scaled up or down, as much as you need.

7. Reduce both direct and indirect operating costs. 

“The implementation of autonomous robots could primarily drive value by reducing direct and indirect operating costs and increasing mission success potential using autonomous robots to drive supply chain innovation.

A quick return on investment outweighs the initial setup costs.  Automation advantages reduce production cost. Decrease in Part cycle Time is crucial for increasing efficiency.  Robotics can work longer and faster which increases production rate.

8. Enable quick ramp-ups to meet increased demand period 

Available labor, particularly during peak periods, cannot always meet seasonal demands. However, companies can turn to robots to improve operations and meet labor demands. “During high demand peak some warehouses have even used robots to quickly train temp workers so that they could add value is added with minimal training. Mixed-flow production approach allows for flexibility in adjusting to demand fluctuations

9. Consistency/Speed

Robots never need to divide their attention between a multitude of things. Their work is never contingent on the work of other people. They won’t have unexpected emergencies, and they won’t need to be relocated to complete a different time sensitive task. They’re always there, and they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. Automation is typically far more reliable than human labor.

This guarantee of quality and consistency coupled with time and efficiency savings means that you can start developing higher quality and more feature-filled products with little or no increase in production time and costs.

10. Create major efficiencies. 

Efficiency by definition describes the extent to which time, effort and cost is effectively applied for the intended task or purpose. Process automation reduces the time it takes to achieve a task, the effort required to undertake it and the cost of completing it successfully.

Autonomous robots can test, pick, pack, sort, build, inspect, count, or transport materials of various sizes and weights faster and more efficiently than ever. Robots are designed on compact bases to fit in confined spaces. In addition to being mounted on the floor, robots can be mounted on walls, ceilings, rail tracks and shelves. They can perform tasks in confined spaces, saving you valuable floor space. 
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Drone technology combined with autonomous navigation and artificial intelligence is being used to understand inventory levels and location within warehouses and enabling organizations to move inventory faster throughout the supply chain. Investing in aerial robots redirects staff to handle high-value activities and empowering their teams with rich information, which can then be revisited at any point and time and can be used to make better decisions.

​Recent reports have concluded there are gaps in Multi-domain Logistics mechanics that compromise ability of the Joint Force ability to provide reliable, agile, responsive and survivable sustainment, causing senior leaders to ask how the Services are going to sustain itself and the joint force from fort to port to foxhole. 

It is imperative Services update robust Multi-Domain sustainment Logistics enterprise that can provide support over great distances in austere environments, both inter- and intra-theater, to prevail in conflict.

The strategic security environment described in the 2018 National Defense Strategy necessitates that DoD and the military services prepare for operations on a complex and multi-domain battlefield where business-as-usual Logistics can not be successful.

The Services response to this Logistics challenge is embedded in a concept called Multi-Domain Operations MDO.  MDO calls for the rapid and continuous integration of all domains of warfare to ensure we can deter threats and prevail in battle. 

Doing so first requires neutralizing adversaries’ anti-access/area denial A2/AD capabilities as forces deploy and then employ combat power Logistics into hostile environments. Threat A2/AD capabilities impede not only the mobility but also the sustainment of forces. 

By making sure Logistics can keep up with multi-domain operations, the adversary will not just be forced to contend with multiple competing dilemmas, but be brought to the negotiating table under optimal conditions

Pentagon vision of how it will fight in the future rests on the notion of the “dilemma.” Multi-domain operations as a concept proposes that the joint force can achieve competitive advantage over a near-peer adversary by presenting multiple complementary threats that each require a response, thereby exposing adversary vulnerabilities to other threats. It is the artful combination of these multiple dilemmas, rather than a clear overmatch in terms of any particular capability, that produces the desired advantage.

An exercise offered a glimpse of what the multi-domain operations concept will look in practice like when applied on the battlefield. The 1st Infantry Division, for example, achieved some success in its ability to rapidly erode enemy defenses through the integrated use of fires, aviation attacks, tactical deceptions, vertical envelopment by light infantry, and armored penetration.

These complementary tools, when applied rapidly and in close synchronization, exchanged mass for tempo and forced the enemy into multiple dilemmas across multiple domains. What follows is an explanation of how the division accomplished this, what we learned, and how we got better along the way.

Managing Risk in the Digital Battlespace

In our initial command post exercise, the division commander challenged us to reframe how we defined risk to the force. Received experience from previous Warfighter exercises suggested that the most dangerous of all courses of action in the face of this peer enemy would be to do nothing, or worse, to halt and await favorable conditions to be set while our very limited armor capability sat within range of the enemy’s long-range artillery.
 
In this fight, audacity—when properly seasoned with a prudent understanding of the risk—is a critical combat multiplier. Must decide up front “how we would enter the digital battlespace”; how we would identify its forward edge; and once in it, how we would proceed audaciously with the simultaneous commitment of all forms of contact that the division could generate. Once in the digital battlespace we realized that the most dangerous and risky thing we could do was to stop attacking.

This challenge is further complicated by the presence of underground facilities throughout the exercise’s area of operations. How troops effectively employed underground facilities to deny coalition forces what has traditionally been our greatest asymmetric advantage—the ability to shape and attrite OPFOR prior to the advance of the main body. We observed a very carefully calibrated set of triggers for the OPFOR decision to uncover its artillery from underground facilities and a period of extreme vulnerability as the OPFOR exited those facilities—often in single file. 

Our goal then was to ensure we were prepared to exploit this window of opportunity either with the timely application of attack aviation or through the insertion of light infantry forces who would then move, often many kilometers, to block the exits to these underground facilities at the opportune moment.

Purpose-Driven Operations

Operational frameworks are difficult to conceptualize, yet they are fundamental to a logical plan. Divisions utilized operational frameworks as a digital  tool to clearly visualize and describe the application of combat power in time, space, and purpose. It provided a logical architecture and foundation on which the subsequent detail, resource, permission, responsibility, effort, operation, concept, and task were built. Through a clearly articulated concept of operations, the division ensured that actions that it and the brigade combat teams executed were in pursuit of the commander’s end state.

During planning, dividing an area of operations into parts categorized as deep, close, support, and consolidation only explains the plan by time and space. Meanwhile, assigning operations as either decisive, shaping, or sustaining and units as the main or supporting efforts explains actions by purpose. Combining all three frameworks achieved what the division and brigade commanders needed: to explain actions and responsibilities in time, space, and purpose.

Presenting Multiple Dilemmas

In this particular Warfighter exercise, the division observed that the terrain limited options for ground maneuver. A single penetration, though conservative and often effective, would not achieve the commander’s intent. The penetration presents the enemy with one problem—a problem that other units have presented repeatedly. Dilemmas are not the same as problems. A problem is a situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful that must be dealt with and overcome. 

A dilemma, by contrast, is a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones. To present the enemy with multiple dilemmas across multiple domains and in multiple locations, the division combined penetrations with audacious turning movements and tactical deceptions, complemented and reinforced with nonlethal effects.

The turning movements were achieved by conducting air assaults across the coordinated fire line and up to the fire support coordination line. To avoid enemy air defenses, these air assaults were often offset by several kilometers and at least a major terrain feature away from their intended target. 

The targets were often key points of overwatch for particular underground facilities suspected of housing long-range artillery, or points of domination that could cover major avenues of approach. Timely execution of these air assaults forced the enemy to divert resources and attention from the advance of our armored formations along heavily defended avenues of approach and thereby dislocated the main enemy defenses. 

In the cases where we were successful, the division forced the enemy to react to our operations and enter the fight on our terms. More importantly, we were able to achieve tempo not just through the sustained geographical advance of the forward line of troops, but by persistently presenting complementary dilemmas to the enemy in unexpected ways to diminish adversaries decision space and disrupted their understanding of its own plan. By the time the enemy observed and oriented on one dilemma, the division sought to present another, thereby causing the enemy to not render a decision on the initial dilemma.

Sustaining both momentum and tempo against a capable enemy required the division to reframe how we achieved synchronization during sustained and dynamic combat operations. Too often our decision-making process in combat operations mirrors the activity of a football team on the gridiron. In the midst of a long offensive drive, we seek to impose periods of planning i.e., the huddle, an approach march, a decisive operation where synchronization is optimized, and a culminating point that leads into a period of disengagement and another planning session. 

This “battle period” model, thankfully obsolete at our brigade training centers with the advent of open phasing, is equally inappropriate in a Warfighter exercise. Instead, we needed to think like a rugby team, where synchronization occurred rapidly and unexpectedly with fleeting moments of opportunity quickly identified and exploited by individual players who then become the supported effort as the team synchronizes around them. This required a different and more dynamic approach with near/long term tactical planning and targeting cycles all occurring constantly as conditions changed on the ground.

Simultaneity and Momentum

Conducted simultaneously, the penetrations, turning movements, and tactical deceptions enabled the division to achieve a degree of irreversible momentum against the enemy. The armor penetrations kept the enemy’s sensors engaged. The turning movements avoided the enemy’s principle defensive positions and seized objectives behind the enemy’s current positions causing the enemy to both dislocate from its positions and to divert forces to meet the threat. The tactical deceptions kept the enemy fixed on sizable threats, which influenced the enemy’s decision to prematurely unmask forces in sanctuary inside its underground facilities. 

Additionally, the combat aviation brigade was employed as an independent maneuver organization focused on destroying enemy high-payoff targets—in particular long-range artillery. Synchronizing all of these actions in time, space, and purpose became a tremendously complex task and the primary focus for the division main command post. 

We managed this effort with a centralized division synchronization matrix that was incredibly detailed, included all subordinate, adjacent, and functional unit actions, remained prominently posted on our current operations floor, and printed in placemat form at every major battle-rhythm event, especially the targeting working group and the target decision board. The synchronization matrix allowed us to forecast time out and visualize the timing of the dilemmas that would be presented to the enemy as we fought through the typical frictions of a large and complex operation.

Targeting and the Plan

The division ensured that the targeting process was nested within the plan and that the plan was flexible enough to adapt with the targeting process. From the beginning, targeting was aligned with the commander’s intent—to “cause the rapid erosion of the enemy’s defenses and will to fight.” 

The division’s targeting imposed the commander’s will, in the form of physical, temporal, and cognitive effects, on the enemy. The division simultaneously employed multiple defeat mechanisms to accomplish its mission, while at the same time removing the ability for the enemy to present dilemmas to the division. The targeting process integrated all warfighting functions, but specifically integrated the enemy plan, the maneuver plan, tactical deceptions, lethal effects, and non lethal effects to exhaust the enemy’s ability to make sound and timely decisions.

Targeting was assessment-driven, and therefore required specificity in information collection and analysis to evaluate the effects. In the deep fight, this process disintegrated the enemy—disrupting and degrading the enemy’s ability to conduct operations while leading to the collapse of enemy capabilities and will to fight. In the close fight, this process prevented the enemy from massing combat power in the battlespace.

Our experience in this Warfighter exercise confirmed practically the conceptually central idea of multi-domain operations—that competitive advantage emerges from the skillful integration of complementary capabilities, sequenced in time, space, and purpose to create multiple dilemmas for an adversary.

When we achieved this effect, we found success. When we failed, the very capable enemy we faced quickly overwhelmed and defeated our exposed forces. Presenting multiple dilemmas required the diivison staff to redefine its understanding of prudent risk and to develop a natural bias toward action rather than inaction. 

Once in the “digital battlespace,” the most dangerous and risky course of action was the failure to act. This required a very clear intent from the commander and a staff that could coordinate, integrate, and anticipate actions in time, space, and purpose, with higher, adjacent, and subordinate unit headquarters. 

Simultaneity across all domains and irreversible momentum can only be achieved through a well-trained and experienced team of teams. “Presenting multiple dilemmas to the enemy” is more than just a catchphrase. Achieiving it requires clear intent, a culture of empowerment, a capable staff, and a level of risk tolerance that many of us may be uncomfortable with. But, when properly and artfully executed it can yield a signficant competitive advantage on the modern battlefield that ultimately saves lives and produces decisive results.

New concept of warfighting has evolved into multi-domain operations and rapidly spread in conversation to the joint force. To take the concept beyond white papers and white boards, the Army has built a Multi-Domain Task Force, which recently saw its first field experiments.

The concept looks at how services will penetrate the more sophisticated defenses of adversaries and travel along the continuum of conflict while maintaining superiority and advantage. It means using longer range fires, better missile defense, an impenetrable network and highly refined small unit capabilities. And it means all of that in more domains at once than any commander has ever had to consider.

At some point, the task forces will simply dissolve into the way the Army does business. “You’ll have these capabilities at echelon throughout the entire theater.

In the near future even company commanders will become used to thinking in all domains and using data, high-performance computing, sensors, nodes, networks and firing platforms across all of the services.

You can’t effectively prosecute a campaign using MDO if it’s not joint. Different domains can be applied to create the window of opportunity. Imagine effectively securing airspace and waterways by long-range precision fires or air missile defense. It’s turning everything on its head.

It’s fair to say in the future MDO is at the tactical level. At the company and battalion level, it’s still about combined arms at the lowest tactical level. MDO just lets the maneuver force continue to do combined arms maneuver.

Now what will be distinct is reliance on the tactical level to think, assess and employ all domains when necessary.. So the thinking will be for tactical-level commanders to see opportunities for all domains to be integrated, or leverage the benefits of other domains in their tactical space. But in the end a battalion will maneuver like a battalion.

That makes operations more dispersed and leaders must call on support from a much wider area. Operational and theater-level commanders must compete daily to enable any kind of penetration or in order to enable conflict.

“What soldiers will see is after forces get out into theater and then geographic combatant commanders recognize the virtues that they bring to their capacity and as we learn and as we go through service wide analysis what you’ll see is that we’ll start building out those echelons we’ve talked about.

“You’ll need to have a theater fires command, you’ll need to have an operational fires command. You’ll need to have network capacity at echelon. You’ll need to have access to space assets at echelon.”

1. Feeds war fighter information necessary to orient structure of battlespace

2. Perspective gives ability to see and understand the competition 

3. Provides insight into battlespace from others’ perspectives 

4. Integrate information where and when it is needed,

5. Aggressive collection and sourcing of information to provide behavior context

6. Indivisible effects depend on ISR and integration.

7. ISR is domain-neutral ISR focused on capabilities and effects, not platforms

8.  ISR is operations—not solely support to operations

9.  Interoperability required for interservice effectiveness
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10. Provides ability for quick maneuver or action between domains

​Every military activity or exercise is an opportunity for assessing logistics performance, but it is rare that military exercises comprehensively test and assess operational sustainability and logistics readiness. Fewer still are those exercises that test logistics readiness through a major deployment performed at short-notice; a phase of an operation that demands all supporting agencies are ready.

There must be a high state of materiel readiness across the force. In addition to appropriately funding the sustainment of equipment, and the establishment of appropriate stocks in appropriate areas to enable operational contingencies, the means of sustaining equipment must be as appropriate for support operations as they are for efficiency in garrison. 

Failures in materiel readiness are often replicated in major sustainability issues on operations, and necessitate consequential actions such as switching parts between aircraft to achieve desired operational readiness outcomes.

The 2nd Marine Division is doing its largest unscripted training in decades. About 10,000 Marines and sailors are training in California for the 2nd Marine Division's largest exercise in recent history.

New technology will allow the Marines to see how they do against a simulated adversary in the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Warfighting Exercise called MWX 1-20.

The troops will be pitted against each other in a force-on-force battle as they prepare for the kind of fight against an enemy with sophisticated equipment and skills.

In the unscripted exercise, Marines will be equipped with "laser-based equipment" that will register when hit by enemy fire. "We're interested in seeing how the Division conducts combat operations against a simulated adversary with capabilities as advanced as our own in the unforgiving terrain of the combat center.

During MWX, Marines and simulated advisory will be using technology such as unmanned aerial surveillance and electronic warfare, which will "challenge how, and the way in which, they make decisions.Technology will provide "unique challenges across every level" during this exercise.

"The 'Follow-Me' Division is going to learn a lot from this challenge and will be a much better, trained and led organization because of this experience.

Logistics has been a double-edged sword for Marines for generations. On the upside, plentiful supplies of fuel, ammunition, and spare parts in good times have kept huge armoured forces on the march. On the downside, the long supply lines, iron mountains of supply stockpiles, and the huge numbers of support troops and vehicles required slow down deployments to a crisis and restrict manoeuvres once it’s arrived.

Marines could cope with these logistical limits when it has months to build up before the shooting started, with nearby as bases, and a relatively short distance to drive.

But logistical demands can be much greater when distances are longer with large combat formations moving along a single axis of advance, let alone supply convoys and depots.

So emerging concepts called multi-domain operations or distributed operations envisions Marines spreading out to make themselves harder targets. Relatively small units would operate “semi-independently,” moving frequently from one position to another, without resupply for days at a time.

The problem is Marines are not set up to do this today. Heavy armoured vehicles just require too much fuel and maintenance to operate this way. The long-term solution is to develop lighter and less logistically demanding vehicles, but recent efforts have been less than successful.

In the meantime, Marines need to figure out how to support the forces it has more efficiently so they can manoeuvre more freely, with less frequent pit stops for maintenance or supply runs for repair parts.

That’s where the new contract comes in. A lot of maintenance that’s done is based on what the owner’s manual says. You should go and get your oil changed and your engine checked every so many miles which can function as a baseline but it doesn’t take into account how the machine is being used and the wear and tear and stresses.

The goal is to track the performance of each major component in real time — oil pressure, turbocharger speed, battery life, etc. etc. — and predict when it’s likely to fail.

Predictive maintenance has two benefits. First, most obviously, it lets you replace or repair a part before it breaks on you. Second, it lets you skip a lot of so-called preventive maintenance, when you pull your vehicle into the shop after so many hours of operation because that’s when, on average, such-and-such a component will need an overhaul.

There’s been a small blitz of media coverage of the contract, it’s focused on how predictive maintenance can improve efficiency and cut costs, but there are uniquely military benefits.

So we track not only the individual performance of specific components on specific vehicles, but also external variables like weather. Heat, cold, and humidity can all impose stress on machinery.

Where is this information coming from? It turns out the ability to put digital sensors on its products got ahead of its ability to do anything with it. A lot of machines have the sensors already on them that are producing metrics, it’s just that nobody’s listening.

Another problem is when vehicle is in a location with poor bandwidth, or if there’s a military reason to turn off all transmissions, the system can stop sending updates for a time. It can also do some of the assessments onboard the vehicle and may not have to send the results back to the central station minimising bandwidth use and transmission length.

But the big benefit is the ability to pool all available information in one place and then let machine learning figure out patterns, which can then be used to forecast future performance.

We can track general trends across a fleet of vehicles, but the real value is with prediction. Imagine if, instead of having to go to the shop for your scheduled work, you could have your status 24/7.

On the individual machine/equipment level, will the fighter unit make it through the day and do what it needs to do?
Our goal is for tactical commanders to know -- we have this many vehicles this is what the overall status is for each one so better strategic decisions can be made

Our expertise spans the entire spectrum of marines operational requirements, such as configuration management, material procurement, training, shipboard assessments, developing and correcting maintenance processes, and documenting material discrepancies. We provide an array of tools, processes, and support systems to manage the flow of equipment, services, and data efficiently and within budget. 

Through data and systems integration, the fusion of information and transportation, and agile infrastructure, seamless and modular logistics support systems are introduced. We create and update maintenance strategies, plans, and procedures for in-service assets. For Marine customers, we develop ship overhaul work package requirements, including development and/or review of work specifications and associated requirements. 

We also support material condition assessment teams and document material deficiencies. We provide professional services in support of military supply, maintenance, and logistics military commands. This support saves cost through efficiencies in procurement and maintenance policies, and provides improved metrics to facilitate superiority in future decisions.

Marines require engineering logistics for all levels of maintenance, providing acquisition planning and support, engineering planning, lifecycle maintenance expertise, engineering technical research, and tools for rapid engineering assessments. 

Effectively identifying and replacing worn parts stateside, prior to deployment, requires extensive maintenance and logistics expertise and improves cost-efficiency and mission effectiveness. 

Our engineers and maintenance personnel have extensive experience in evaluating equipment operability risks and identifying discrepancies. Our logistics support personnel have deep experience in material identification, sourcing, ordering, tracking, and expediting. We update configuration databases to reflect as-installed equipment and workload schedule forecasting.
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Highly intensive systems in domains such as transportation, infrastructure, aerospace and telecom have long operational life cycles and their stakeholders expect them to exhibit the necessary operational and performance characteristics during these long operational life spans. 

Often the results have been less than satisfactory, which has led many to envision alternative approaches to effectively sustaining such systems. Among the alternative approaches is Performance Based Logistics,  whose essence is to define key system readiness and effectiveness criteria and to contract for threshold values of these criteria. The emphasis is on contracting for results, and not for resources as traditionally done.

We partnered with marines to conduct survey aimed at assessing current practices in performance-based logistics contracting, highlighting the lessons learned and outlining the primary drawbacks observed.

 We developed a framework for formulating more efficient and effective contractual agreements and identified the main topics, aspects and metrics representing system effectiveness of a successful performance-based logistics initiative. 

Marine leaders must consider the following factors for early assessment, since failure to do so could cause significant consequences in operation phases. 

1. Threat 

The sensitivity of the program to uncertainty in the threat description, the degree to which the system design would have to change if the threat’s parameters change, or the vulnerability of the program to collect intelligence collection efforts sensitive to threat countermeasures

2. Requirements

How program are impacted by uncertainty in the system description and requirements, excluding those caused by threat uncertainty. Requirements include operational needs, attributes, performance and readiness parameters to include key Performance Parameters, constraints, technology, design processes, and work breakdown structure

3. Technical Baseline

The ability of the system configuration to achieve the program’s engineering objectives based on the available technology, design tools, design maturity, etc. Program uncertainties and the processes associated with the reliability, supportability, maintainability, etc. must be considered. The system configuration is an agreed-to description of the attributes of a product, at a point in time, which serves as a basis for defining change.

4. Test and Evaluation

The adequacy and capability of the test and evaluation program to assess attainment of significant performance specifications and determine whether the system is operationally effective, operationally suitable, and interoperable.

5. Modeling and Simulation

The adequacy and capability of model/simulation to support all life-cycle phases of a program using verified, validated, and accredited models and simulations.

6. Technology

The degree to which the technology proposed for the program has demonstrated sufficient maturity to be realistically capable of meeting all of the program’s objectives.

7. Logistics

The ability of the system configuration and associated documentation to achieve the program’s logistics objectives based on the system design, maintenance concept, support system design, and availability of support data and resources.

8. Production/Facilities

The ability of the system configuration to achieve the program’s production objectives based on the system design, manufacturing processes chosen, and availability of manufacturing and repair resources in the sustainment phase.

9. Concurrency

The sensitivity of the program to uncertainty resulting from the combining or overlapping of life-cycle phases or activities. The ability of the system needs ability to achieve the program’s life-cycle support objectives. This includes the effects of budget and affordability decisions and the effects of inherent errors in the cost estimating techniques used given that the technical requirements were properly defined and taking into account known and unknown program information.

10. Schedule

The degree to which program scheduling plans and strategies exist and are realistic and consistent within qualified support team. Schedule involves sufficiency of the time allocated for performing tasks include effects of programmatic schedule decisions, errors in schedule estimating, and external physical constraints.

​We train Marine combat leaders to making successful decisions under pressure. In a war game, troops play their own company, a select group of their competitors and the battlespace. A control team plays all other entities that affect the field units. The game begins with a prepared set of conditions and, when the whistle blows, anything goes - that is, anything that can happen in the real world.

To be most effective, war games should include certain specific real world conditions. These include a strongly competitive battlespace, so that players must make decisions reacting to each other’s actions. Another is unpredictability, illustrated by changing technologies and shifts in battlespace target demand. 

Long and short term perspective are required, to show how decisions made now will affect field level success later on. One important result that makes wargames supremely worthwhile: troops learn the importance of being absolutely clear in their communications.

When the dust has settled, Marines look back on these simulations as one of the most challenging and stimulating exercises of their careers. 

In general, the decision making process helps troops solve problems by examining alternative choices and deciding on the best route to take. Using a step-by-step approach is an efficient way to make informed decisions that have a positive impact on mission results.

1. Identify the decision

The first step in making the right decision is recognizing the problem or opportunity and deciding to address it. Determine why this decision will make a difference to your organization.

Must identify exactly what decision is being made. If it's a choice between two things, such as choosing between two jobs that are being offered, it's fairly simple to name the decision. But if it's a question of whether to start an operation and what exactly the team should do, or how to run expansion, that's trickier. 

Write down what you think the decision is that you're making, then iterate your description of the decision until it expresses exactly what you're trying to decide. 

If you misidentify the problem to solve, you’ll knock the decision train off the track before it even leaves the station.

2.  Build the proper infrastructure

It isn’t safe to delegate before you have built the proper infrastructure to assign the right people with potential to return time investment to train them.

Must document processes so you have to literally write down how you want things done. Yes, this is work and no one is going to celebrate your efforts. However, documentation is the best means for communicating how you want things done when you can’t be there. 

Developing robust metrics so you get regular reports that quantify the performance of your team with solid operating metrics that tell you how things are going in almost real time.

3. Put data access processes in place

Once you’ve identified what you want to monitor, make sure your processes can deliver your data. For example, if you don’t currently update your estimates with change orders, you can add that to your workflow to get a truer picture of your estimate-to-actual variance.

The data won’t do much good if your decision makers can’t get to it. Look for technology that allows commanders in the field to access the information they need from their mobile devices. Use customized dashboards and easy to understand graphs and other visuals to make the data easily consumable and understandable.

4. Gather information 

Now it’s time to gather information so that you can make a decision based on facts and data. This requires making a value judgment, determining what information is relevant to the decision at hand, along with how you can get it. Ask yourself what you need to know in order to make the right decision, then actively seek out anyone who needs to be involved.

So you know you have a decision to make; now you need to learn more about the decision so you want to identify what kinds of information you need, how you will get that information and how you will use the information so you learn more about the situation, and zero in on prospective alternatives.

5. Identify alternatives

Once you have a clear understanding of the issue, it’s time to identify the solutions at your disposal. It’s likely that you have many different options when it comes to making your decision, so it is important to come up with a range of options to determine which course of action is the best way to achieve your objective.

You will need to weigh the evidence to “evaluate for feasibility, acceptability and desirability” to know which alternative is best, You need to be able to weigh pros and cons to select the option that has the highest chances of success. It may be helpful to seek out a trusted second opinion to gain a new perspective on the issue at hand.

6.. Choose among alternatives

When it’s time to make your decision, be sure that you understand the risks involved with your chosen route. You may also choose a combination of alternatives now that you fully grasp all relevant information and potential risks.

If you noticed a pattern that one alternative dominates all the rest, that clearly becomes your decision.  But if you cannot decide, you’ll need to make tradeoffs using a process called even swaps to increase the value of an alternative in terms of one objective while decreasing its value by an equivalent amount in terms of another objective.

7. Design solutions

Now that you have collected and assessed the data, you can start to design solutions. This can take on many different forms, such as creating battlespace area layouts, or new processes to name a few. 

You need to create a plan for implementation. This involves identifying what resources are required and gaining support from stakeholders since getting them onboard with your decision is a key component of executing your plan effectively. Be prepared to address any questions or concerns that may arise.

8. Validate the preferred design option 

Before you pull the trigger on the decision, you want to know if it’s going to actually solve the problem. To help validate the preferred option, you can run simulations or even model the system so you will be able to see your system and test different worse-case scenarios.

Considering the consequences is key because it will help you determine how your final decision will impact yourself, and/or others involved. In this step, you will be asking yourself what is likely to be the results of your decision. How will it affect you now? And how will it affect your future?

9. Take Action

Here comes the fun/scary part. You have identified your problem or your goal. You've gathered all of the possible information, gotten information from the experts, and weighed the consequences. Now it's time to make the choice. You've gotten rid of all the alternatives that are not practical or simply do not fit.

Time can be a tough friend. Sometimes it is good, and sometimes it is not. When making major decisions and taking action, understanding the timing process is crucial because sometimes it is best to delay a decision, and other times delaying a response can cause more problems. There are also times when making a quick decision is advantageous because it allows you more time to make necessary changes should problems arise

Once you’ve made your decision, act on it! Execute your plan to set the team loose on their tasks.

10.  Review your decision 

An often-overlooked but important step in the decision making process is evaluating your decision for effectiveness. Ask yourself what you did well and what can be improved next time.
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Even the most experienced commanders can learn from their mistakes … be ready to adapt your plan as necessary, or to switch to another potential solution. If you find your decision didn’t work out the way you planned, you may want to revisit some of the previous steps to identify a better choice.

​The Pentagon is soliciting weapons system information from industry to better understand trouble spots in supply chains, as part of a broader review and war-gaming effort to discover potential failure points for defense industrial base crisis in a time of conflict. The New effort similar to scenario planning that goes on throughout the Pentagon on a regular basis will look at how various scenarios would impact the Pentagon’s ability to arm itself.

America’s “increasingly brittle industrial base” may not be able to sustain our forces in a protracted war. It’s a problem a lot of people are wrestling with. Focus is on peer competitor conventional threats that would really stress all the different vectors of the industrial base.

That suggests a radically different model for military logistics. Instead of manufacturing “iron mountains” of supplies in the US, then shipping them overseas, stockpiling them behind the battlefront, and finally distributing them to combat units – creating targets for enemy strikes all along the way – those units could have 3D printers to make their own spare parts and potentially even food and ammunition. 

The supply lines would still have to provide raw feedstock of various kinds, but that’s much simpler than delivering thousands of different parts to the right place at the right time.

“We’re looking for industrial base risks, and those risks include foreign dependency, sole source, single source, at-risk suppliers, suppliers that may not be looking to stay in the market there are specific concerns about mining companies that DoD fails to “move the needle on” but which are vital to maintaining a technological edge.

Especially worrying are the single points of failure, the chokepoints in the supplier base where a single small firm, often struggling to get by, is the only maker of some critical spare part. There’s little profit to be made on such components because they’re only needed in small numbers – at least until something goes badly wrong, like an accident or a war. By contrast, our adversaries are willing to subsidize production of such key components, not to mention long-shot research that might one day yield some future weapon.

While there have been a few specific studies done, looking at munitions or certain materials, a broad look has not been conducted in many years, “To do this, to look at how the industrial base will be stressed, could be stressed under specific operations will give DoD information it doesn’t currently have much of.

Pentagon used to do scenario planning for the industrial base, but that practice has faltered as staff sizes changed and priorities shifted elsewhere of what would happen in scenario if a key manufacturing plant was hit by a tornado. More modern scenarios could include what happens if a specialized company decides to exit the defense market.

The defense industrial base has been hollowing out and consolidating for decades, leaving defense acquisition officials with numerous single points of failure in their supply chains. In many instances, only one company, out of nearly 80,000 in the defense industrial base, is able to perform sensitive technology work for the Pentagon. For example, there is just one company in the United States that can repair propellers for Navy submarines —a single point of failure. The same is true of producers of flat panel displays for military aircraft.

Order establishes a policy for prioritizing industrial base resilience as well as a comprehensive review of the base’s health. Must view defense industrial base as a whole — it is composed of more than just the traditional defense sector. In this way, the executive order could kick-start an effort to bring together all elements of national power to ensure American national security. But the measure isn’t perfect. It needs to be calibrated to ensure national security leaders have complete visibility into a diverse industrial base with secure supply chains.

Ordered review would identify the raw materials and manufacturing capabilities that are essential to U.S. national security, as well as highlight contingencies that may be disrupting critical supply chains that support national security needs. America’s manufacturing resilience has always been one of its greatest strengths, but modern product suppliers face many complex challenges.

The Pentagon’s ability to procure goods critical to the common defense will be hampered by an inability to obtain commercial sub-components indirectly related to national security. Order’s assessment will provide visibility into these sub-component suppliers; only then can the government make informed procurement decisions across the entire manufacturing base.

Large firms that build major defense programs should be prepared to embracing nontraditional, commercial suppliers. In recent years, smaller defense corporations have won an increasingly large share of the Pentagon’s research and development budget, often by converting commercial technologies into military applications. This is an opportunity for heritage defense firms to proactively engage both small R&D contractors and nontraditional suppliers alike to ensure defense-critical technologies are seamlessly incorporated into their supply chains.

The new frontiers of technology are great, but war still requires old-fashioned industrial might to build ships, tanks, planes, and missiles. “There’s some advanced manufacturing stuff that’s pretty aggressive where we are world leaders, where we’re pretty dynamic. “but where we really struggle is in heavy industry. The conventional wisdom for so many years has been that we’ve moved past this industrial age manufacturing economy – but a great deal of what we do is 20th century industrial warfare.”

The institutes are investing in what we call industrial commons. It’s a technology challenge that needs to be overcome, in order to get some capability. The applications are super wide. If we can figure out how to transmit information by light, look at the applications -- It’s not just defense, its commercial. So all these institutes, we address a space that is going to change the world, not just DoD.

Balanced and logical” approach is needed. Delayering the supply chain too much could compound risks at a critical time when primes are ramping up its production rate, and disruptions could potentially result in delayed weapons systems deliveries. Must be careful on how we allocate the work so that we don’t increase the risk. Its taken long time for supply chain put into place so products that we need can be built.

“It’s more than just buying something these companies need to integrate and manage their supply chain, and if we’re not careful, we could end up disrupting that and it could potentially increase the cost of the products and services. Or worse, we don’t get a part delivered, and now the customer doesn’t get an airplane. parts must be delivered directly to the line site in sequence, eliminating inefficiencies such as time and labor spent retrieving parts from warehouses. 

Defense manufacturers are mirroring commercial manufacturers’ assembly lines to become more efficient and cut costs in an increasingly crowded armored vehicle manufacturing industry. Parts are delivered directly to the line site in sequence, eliminating inefficiencies such as time and labor spent retrieving parts from warehouses. Typical commercial automotive plant has each vehicle move down the production line. The parts go to a fixed station, and the vehicle progresses down the line and the parts are built upon the vehicle as it goes.

So what’s the key to getting rid of those bottlenecks? It’s in our interest to develop capabilities so that we don’t have the supply chain or the inventory tied up in many months’ worth of shipping volumes. For producers, that means greater access to suppliers, which will increase efficiency and build new capabilities. It was difficult to convince and bring trained workers to the floor to operate machines as assemblers, technicians and others was new for us. But it has grown very quickly and has a compounding effect on product delivery. It’s a snowball effect.

“Part offsets is formed by enabling qualified partners to do all of the long-term logistics support – providing the maintenance, servicing, spare parts, as well as the ongoing training for the user. That gives the user the confidence that they really do have a product with support base formed. “So by using innovative manufacturing processes, introducing best-practice commercial practices, it allows us to be really competitive with our marketspace.

Challenges in building Industrial capacity are major factor in making sure industrial partners have sufficient heads up so that they can fulfill whatever requirement are identified by our partners and get it to them as quickly as possible.”

Responsible use of funds is vital when handling contract process, whatever the demand signal. Following a proven step-by-step purchasing technique will help management successfully achieve its goals.

DoD must know it needs a new product, whether from internal or external sources. The product may be one that needs to be reordered, or it may be a new item for the organisation

Field level operators identify a buying need & must ask the Purchasing Office to identify sources, develop procurement descriptions or specifications, obtain quotes from potential suppliers, and share the information with the department.

The very first step in any purchase order process is identifying a need. For the purposes of this example the need is 1000 parts in order to complete a mission. The need has arisen because DoD has received a new order from field agents requiring some materiel for the mission.

DoD may identify that there is a need to update equipment stock require business service to be then defined and specified. DoD must understand what the fundamental business requirement is. At this point, it is important to understand the difference between a requirement and a solution. 

For example, the business requirement is to source some equipment to help to get information published on DoD interfaces. An item to publish information on the interface is a solution – not a requirement. The requirement is to be able to publish information on the network. It may be that an outsourced solution is a better option.

DoD must firstly identify timeline & key dates estimated in the need for a new product. It could be sourced from either internal or external sources. DoD may need to reorder a product or it could be a new item completely. It is important to identify the need for a product so the process can be dealt with efficiently and effectively through the procurement sequence

Now DoD must specify how much and when you want the products or services delivered. Finding the right product or mission for DoD is a highly important step in the sequence. There are often standards put in place to determine the specifications required, while others have no point of reference to look upon. 

There is the possibility that the DoD has ordered the product in the past but if not, then they must specify which product they want using identifying factors such as packaging and weight. Having specifications in place will make this process easier. Then there is the need for researching surge scenarios scoping out the positioning of a product will identify potential competitors to supply service.

Getting the right product is critical for DoD. Some units have standards to help determine specifications. Part numbers help identify these for some field groups. DoD may have ordered the product in the past. If not, then units must specify the necessary product by using identifiers such as lethality or weight.

By using a standard procurement process, you will find that suppliers will be familiar & keep up to date with the requirements steps you take including specification for  key quality or performance standards.

The next step in the process is finding out where the product can be obtained. DoD may use a list of approved suppliers to find somewhere that can source the product. If this is not the case, then the business will have to find a supplier using purchase orders or research other sources using sales representatives. The company will then develop a strategy and follow through with the supplier that gives the best product or service for the business, to fulfill their need.

DoD must determine where to obtain the product. possibly with an approved vendor list. If not, DoD must  search for a supplier using purchase orders or research a variety of other sources to qualify the suppliers to determine the best product for the mission.

Suppliers need to be identified. This will be the role of procurement, who will be the key personnel who will be able to make the final purchase, based on the requisition note.

The procurement section can deal with this by looking at their list of approved suppliers to see if any of them can accommodate their requirements, or they may approach specific suppliers who produce the parts required and go through a process of seeking information from the suppliers, to elicit who best can meet their needs.

In this instance it would be reasonable for procurement simply to go to their approved suppliers, because the parts are needed relatively urgently to complete supply process, so to some extent, time is of the essence. This flexibility ensures that DoD can meet their needs efficiently and effectively.

Buyers may already know which supplier to buy the item from that is being requested. If not, request for quote process may be initiated to identify a supplier, price and lead time.

Process must ensure suppliers must be given a fair amount of time to respond, answer any clarification questions, use the evaluation panel to evaluate responses against stated criteria & document evaluation process/recommendation to select successful supplier report.

Repetitive orders usually have set suppliers, although it does no harm to review the options sometimes. Other orders will either need to go out to tender or there will be a choice of suppliers.

After researching the market and establishing your procurement approach, you need to evaluate the solutions available. Your criteria for comparing different solutions and suppliers are critical. Weight the key criteria heavily and don’t attach too much importance to aspects that will have little impact on the solution.

Supplier must show how organisation can add value. Can you give us even more than we are asking for? How is your offering better than your competitors' offering? Show that you offer good value for money. Make sure you submit on time. 

The business will then move on to determining the best price and terms for the product they require. This often depends on the needs of the company, the products they already have in stock or specialised materials they require. 

Following the process, it is normally recommended for the business to look at several different suppliers before making a final decision. It is important for the company to look around to see if they can find a good deal for the products they require. Researching different brands will allow them to find the best deal and terms that match the product or service they are looking to acquire.

Even when you have selected a supplier it is important that detailed negotiations are undertaken. This is not just about price. Think in terms of Total Cost of Ownership. A cheap product is not so cheap if the carriage costs are huge or if the maintenance contract is not going to support future missions.

The basic procurement cycle consists of ten steps, depending on the complexity of the buy and organizational policies. At a bare minimum, it consists of an order eg requisition or purchase order, an invoice-- for example one with the receipt, and payment. For high-dollar purchases, the process will generally also include authorization and reconciliation of the invoice. 

In a leading procurement organization, every step will be completed, although many will be completed automatically for low-dollar or non-strategic purchases by the digital system using defined rules in the workflow engine.

While these are the basic steps in the purchasing process all companies are different – some will wish to automate as much as possible replacing paper forms with electronic messages- others may have complex approval rules – despite these variations however the fundamentals remain the same.

1.  Identify need to update the inventory or stock for service/product.

2. Specify how much and when you want the products or services delivered.

3. Write the purchase order or requisition orders submit to authority for purchase

4. With a large order that will be put out to tender it could be multi staged.

5. Repetitive orders usually have set suppliers but review options sometimes.

6. Identify scenarios where orders need to go out to tender or there will be a choice of suppliers.

7. Some suppliers will be contracted with master agreement with set price/ terms for defined period. 

8, Order is placed and becomes a contract between the business and supplier

9. Order Received/Inspected when goods are delivered and entered into the inventory. 

10. Update purchasing ledger and stock records

​Major lines of effort to strengthen Defense Industrial base outlined in the National Defense Strategy include lethality for the warfighter, strengthening alliances/ partnerships, and business reform. 

All lines of effort require a robust, and secure industrial base. Without a strong defense industry and healthy manufacturing sector, including both domestic and with foreign allies and partners, DoD cannot ensure national security. All of the current and future activities of the new Executive Order directly support National Defense Strategy priorities.

Sequestration, uncertainty of defense spending, inconsistent appropriations, uncertainty about future budgets, ambiguity in Congressional expenditures, and the effects of the Budget Control Act create market instability. Decline of manufacturing base capabilities and capacity affect the viability of suppliers, overall capacity, and capabilities available domestically.

While overall performance of DoD military technologies and weapon systems is best in world, industry has at times failed to provide systems with the promised capabilities, or only done so after following delays, increased costs, or both. It is difficult to assess the full extent of these various programme shortfalls because they can often be dealt with by DoD actions .

DoD can make available additional funding, alter requirements to avoid owning up to shortfalls, or stretch  out programmes until technical problems have been resolved. Moreover, program terminations due to acquisition difficulties can also be chosen by DoD to release funds for other uses or because products are no longer needed.
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The original ’A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority’ plan called for “high velocity learning” – which encouraged the Navy acquisition community to try some new processes for designing, contracting and fielding programs on a tighter timeline. The updated Design 2.0 now expects that that learning will lead to faster and cheaper acquisition going forward.

“Embedded behind all these pretty aggressive plan was released. The elements of that are, let’s get our requirements team talking to industry earlier so that we understand, where’s the technological maturity, what can we achieve with confidence now?”

Intentions pair a drive to move faster – ditching arbitrary initial operating capability dates for an “ASAP” mentality – with a recognition that moving faster may require an iterative process that fields a good solution now and upgrades to a better one as technology matures.

“Things like the frigate, the large surface combatant – parts of that ship are going to last for the entire life of the ship: the hull of the ship, the power plant, the propulsion plant. But the rest of it is going to change very fast: the sensors and computing power and weapons even. It’s got to be designed into the ship to be able to swap that capability out quickly.

It gives us the confidence that we can converge on a pretty good hull form, build as much power into the ship as we can afford – it’s almost like memory for your computer, you’re going to use it all and want more – and then the rest of it’s designed to be rapidly upgraded through the life of the ship.

“For the frigate were going to have to converge on something that’s pretty well known right 
now. We’re not going to be able to meet that timeline and design some kind of brand new hull form. And I’ll tell you what, naval architecture’s been around for a while, so we sort of know how that works, so I’ve got a lot of confidence that we’ll get to something that will be adequate soon. Beyond that, who knows?”

“So we’ll have the naval architects working in parallel, and so as these two streams move together so something’s mature enough – they say this is really going to be a lot more capable and also we can do this with confidence in cost and schedule – then we’ll just incorporate that it. So whether that’s at the next five-year mark or whatever it turns out to be, hard to say, but we’ll keep these things going.”

A key lesson the Navy learned over the past few years about cutting cost and time from acquisition programs is paring down requirements to the bare minimum. The MQ-25A program had just two key requirements: being able to operate from an aircraft carrier, and being able to refuel other aircraft. This  model can be applied to everything from the next fighter jet to the next large surface combatant-  it is key to allowing industry to move faster and avoid unnecessary costs.

“The  approach that we want to minimise the number of hard requirements allows a tremendous amount of creativity in terms of going to meet those requirements. So what happens when we come up with reams and reams of very, very specific requirements is that … certainly has implications for the design and may box out a really creative solution if we over-specify any particular aspect of the ship, the design. And it’s for ships, aircraft, submarines, what have you. We want to really minimize the number of hard requirements, bring industry into the conversation and give them as much trade space and freedom to innovate to meet those requirements.”

“These aren’t just sort of random dates thought up on a late night. It was pretty carefully coordinated. “One of the things that’s been a persistent goal in some programs is to try and continue to buy schedule margin to add a little cushion to the already-tight timeline for the program.

“If we buy enough margin that we can deliver the thing earlier, let’s do it. Quick turnaround dates were included in Design 2.0 are included with the hope the  acquisition community and industry will be off to the races to field these new capabilities “ASAP.” There are often talks about making changes or otherwise slowing down a program, which is deemed acceptable as long as the program still meets its required IOC date.

By taking away IOC as a measure of success, the hope is that it puts all of us in a much more competitive mindset. What has emerged is a system that for whatever reason is really kind of internally focused, and is not really focused on winning in a competitive environment.

Just imagine the smartphone industry: the second smartphone that has a particular capability, that’s a significant disadvantage over the first to market. And it’s the same in military capability. So we want to make sure that we’re delivering this capability at a competitive speed. 

We are first on the water with the high capability and not the second.” 

“So by saying let’s not build in an artificial date – that may give us comfort and slow down our pace. Let’s get competitive and race this thing.

Navy building new office to ‘short-circuit’ traditional DoD acquisition system with mission to translate new technologies into actual weapons systems much more quickly than the Service can do today.

The new organization’s primary purpose will be to better connect the science and technology research that’s already being done in Navy Department research facilities with the short-term, real-world equipping needs of sailors and marines.

“We have a very strong technical base.  “But we need to better leverage it and we need to marry it up more tightly with the fleet to short-circuit the long process that involves everything we do now, from requirements definition to the budgeting process to ultimately get something into a program of record.”

Navy is going to launch into experimentation and prototyping that matters to a given threat or technology, and do it at the same time the machinery is starting up to define our budgets and requirements. 

Then by the time we get into the traditional budget cycle, we have a firm understanding of the technical possibilities, we have a much greater understanding of the costs and we can point our industrial base toward the solution. We can make progress in the interim while we’re developing the technology and then reduce the amount of time it takes on the back-end to field the ultimate solution.”

Navy is going to do more testing and prototyping of new technologies within the funding lines that pay for large programs of record such as ships and airplanes, similar to the flexibilities the Navy already has within R&D accounts.

Under the current process, it takes DoD a full year to prepare a budget, another year to argue the spending plan’s merits before Congress and another year to actually expend the money once funds are appropriated into extremely rigid buckets.

“That’s a challenge for us when we are, for example, moving through the process to buy a combat vehicle or a tactical truck. If industry or our own applied research comes up with a new transmission that can reduce our fuel consumption by 50 percent, it will be another year before program can be flexed to incorporate the new technology because of the way we identify our funding lines. If I have some flexibility, we can use the things we’re already doing through open systems architecture to at least start the process to plug that new transmission in now.”

Part of the message will be that many prototypes will fail, but that DoD needs more latitude to fail early instead of building large programs of record which rely on promised but yet-unproven technologies.

The challenge will be convincing Congress that DoD is not squandering money in the process.

“We’re going to lay out an approach that will give Congress the confidence and insight in terms of how we would increase the amount of funding we’re putting toward experimentation and prototyping. “We already have the authorities. What we need to do is persuade the Congress that it also has the oversight authority it needs to do its job.”

The military also needs more freedom to spend on technologies even when they don’t have an obvious connection to the major programs of record that make up the bulk of DoD’s acquisition funding.

“The notion of risk becomes really important when you look at technologies that are hard for us to integrate right away or that aren’t mature enough, and all too often the budget process forces us to walk away from those. “Unless those technologies are mature enough to plug in right away, it’s hard to defend the funding both internally and across the department and with Congress.”

“We need the ability to experiment in those areas and then, as we get more definition, be able to apply it directly to a program right away.”

Procurement division in any company must understand how to obtaining products and services. The procurement cycle follows specific steps for identifying a requirement or need of the company through the final step of the award of the product or contract. Responsible management of funds is vital when handling this necessary process, whether in strong or weak mission demand signal markets.

A procurement process template provides a model and a framework to work within to Save you time; ensure that you get the right solution to meet your business needs; ensure you pay the right price and avoid overlooking vital steps that may come back to bite you later. 

By using a standard procurement process, you will find that suppliers will be familiar with the steps you take. They will know what to expect and will know that they are dealing with a professional organization.
Every project is different. Some procurement projects are small and every step of a formal process may not be required. Alternatively, some projects are highly complex or regulated and a generic framework will not be appropriate or sufficient. Despite this, every procurement project follows the same broad process . The key thing to remember is to adapt the process to fit the project.

Digital procurement solutions can be a significant source of help in various stages of the procurement process. For instance, an digital procurement solution will electronically generate purchase orders, with all of the requisite information.

Also, a digital procurement solution is a critical tool when it comes to delivery and record keeping. With a digital procurement solution, all purchase orders will be sent electronically in the system to ensure delivery is completed immediately.

Finally, a digital procurement solution will catalogue every transaction in the system, ensuring your records are kept up-to-date. Those records are of critical importance for financial forecasting or process efficiency tracking.

Procurement has so many moving parts it requires constant analysis and monitoring by someone or a team within an organization. There is always more to know/more data to analyze/more forecasts to produce – all of which is a responsibility of procurement.

The benefits of digital procurement system extend to each stage of the procurement process. Stream line your purchasing and procurement processes, reduce personnel headaches, eliminate unnecessary paperwork. Now is the time to switch to a digital procurement system 

So…what are the stages in the procurement process? What are those constantly moving pieces in procurement?

As you learn/read more about the procurement enterprise, it becomes glaringly obvious that each of the factions involved in procurement has a slightly different take on the stages in the procurement process. That’s why we put together a solid list of the critical stages in the procurement process.

We find confusion in most outside reports and procurement manuals, were the procurement process is said to include inventory control and management, storage and distribution, and even disposal—all functions which are more appropriately classified as part of logistics, and even supply chain management, but not necessarily procurement.

So, in line with the above, the steps in digital procurement process are those listed below and they will be addressed in more detail in future posts. So here is a proven Step-by-Step technique enables procurement teams to successfully achieve goals of field-level service.

1.  Need Recognition

The business must know it needs a new product, whether from internal or external sources. The product may be one that needs to be reordered, or it may be a new item for the company.

2.  Specific Need

The right product is critical for the company. Some industries have standards to help determine specifications. Part numbers help identify these for some businesses. Other industries have no point of reference. The company may have ordered the product in the past. If not, then the business must specify the necessary product by using identifiers such as color or weight.

3.  Source Options

The business needs to determine where to obtain the product. The company might have an approved vendor list. If not, the business will need to search for a supplier using purchase orders or research a variety of other sources such as magazines, the Internet or sales representatives. The company will qualify the suppliers to determine the best product for the business.

4.  Price and Terms
The business will investigate all relevant information to determine the best price and terms for the product. This will depend on if the company needs commodities readily available products or specialized materials. 

5. Purchase Order

The purchase order is used to buy materials between a buyer and seller. It specifically defines the price, specifications and terms and conditions of the product or service and any additional obligations.

6.  Delivery

The purchase order must be delivered and sometimes the specific delivery method is specified in the purchasing documents. The recipient then acknowledges receipt of the purchase order. Both parties keep a copy on file.

7.  Expediting

Expedition of the purchase order addresses the timeliness of the service or materials delivered. It becomes especially important if there are any delays. The issues most often noted include payment dates, delivery times and work completion.

8.  Receipt and Inspection of Purchases

Once the sending company delivers the product, the recipient accepts or rejects the items. Acceptance of the items obligates the company to pay for them.

9.  Invoice Approval and Payment

Three documents must match when an invoice requests payment – the invoice itself, the receiving document and the original purchase order. The agreement of these documents provides confirmation from both the receiver and supplier. Any discrepancies must be resolved before the recipient pays the bill. 

10. Record Maintenance

In the case of process review events, must maintain proper records. These include purchase records verifying any purchase order to confirm information. Purchase records reference future purchases as well.

Services are constantly struggling to find suppliers for parts on aging planes that the original manufacturers may no longer produce. In some cases, the companies that built the part have long exited the business, but requirements remain.

“Oftentimes we have parts that we can no longer get, and they’re in small numbers, so we can’t get interest in the part of an industry to build something when there’s only a small number and they have to retool or do that.” 

3D printing is playing a large role to improve logistics across the services. Advancements in 3-D printing allow the force to not worry about the supplying and ordering of parts cutting out the supply chain and reducing timelines for making parts.

In a real-world example, the service had to replace load-bearing handles on C-5 aircraft for $1,600 each. The part, however, was unavailable and HQ said it didn’t know when it would be able to get the part. Through 3D printing, the service was able to produce the part for $300 and didn’t have to wait around for it to be delivered.

Dispatcher Road trip Story illustrates important lessons about using performance measures to help ensure that a supply chain is performing well.

Dispatcher is driving on a long trip in a car that has a broken speedometer and a broken gas gauge. Dispatcher has been traveling for several hours, keeping track of the time and looking at the odometer to determine how fast Dispatcher is going. 

Dispatcher is sure the speed limits are being followed– when Dispatcher is stopped by a patrolman and given a speeding ticket. 

Slowing down, Dispatcher drives for two more hours keeping track of the time and the odometer, but once again is stopped by a patrolman and given another speeding ticket. 

During the remainder of the trip Dispatcher slows down to a speed Dispatcher now believes will avoid getting another speeding ticket.

Dispatcher drives for one more hour when the car stops all of a sudden. Dispatcher ran out of gas!

Not a very good trip, primarily because Dispatcher was missing some very important key measurement devices in the car – the speedometer and the gas gauge. 

Unlike Dispatcher, most people would be extremely reluctant to drive this car.  In a similar way, however, there are many companies that run their supply chains without a good set of measurements in place. 

Like Dispatcher, the only way they are able to find out if they are meeting their supply chain goals is after the fact, by diagnosing poor financial results, or when they lose an important customer- events similar to the speeding tickets.

Dispatcher experience teaches us several lessons on the importance of measuring supply chain performance

Measurements are important to directly controlling behavior and indirectly to performance – the speedometer reading impacts how hard or soft Dispatcher pushes on the gas pedal.

A few key measurements will go a long way toward keeping a company on track towards achieving its supply chain improvement objectives – like those on a speedometer and a gas gauge.

Seemingly relevant, but cumbersome, measurements are of little use, and
are possibly a hindrance, in helping to improve supply chain performance like the odometer in the car.

Picking the wrong measures and leaving out important ones could lead to supply chain performance degradation – like running out of gas.

Driving a supply chain based only on after-the-fact measures, like losing
an important customer or having poor financial performance is not very effective-- the way getting speeding tickets and running out of gas is an expensive way to drive a car.

Many companies use the term “scorecard” to describe the report that conveys performance information to suppliers.

No standard measurement approach exists across industries, although supply chain organizations should strive internally for some consistency, particularly with respect to the technical aspects of their systems. 

It does not make sense for every business unit or internal location to re-invent how they measure performance. The challenge today is to develop a measurement process and scorecard system that offers some flexibility to a company's internal operations while maintaining company-wide consistency. 

Consider the following examples. A consumer products company developed a scorecard to evaluate its suppliers, most of which were substantially larger than the company. It was bad enough that this scorecard was not pilot-tested and was less than professional in appearance. 

But the system failed when many larger suppliers challenged the accuracy of the company's scores, particularly when the scores were lower than those received from the suppliers' more sophisticated customers. Suffice it to say that this experience deterred the company from moving forward with its measurement objectives.

Procurement teams must take a hard look at their measurement processes long before suppliers can challenge the legitimacy of the metrics. The processes must not turn into the kind of exercise that one supplier's executive described as “they present and we rebut.” 
 
A second example highlights a variety of shortfalls that confront too many supplier measurement systems. Almost every supply chain organization has at least thought about developing a supplier scorecard system. Those that are serious about the process have most likely committed serious time, budget, and resources toward development and maintenance of systems of measurement. 

One such logistics company had a system that on the surface, appears ideal. Do senior managers need a ranking of supplier performance sorted by commodity group? Do they want a listing of the company's best or worst performing suppliers?  This, and much more, is available at the push of a button.

However, during a training session at this logistics company, an instructor asked several buyers to name one of their best performing suppliers—what the company called an elite supplier. 

The intent was to use examples of real suppliers to demonstrate the data features of the system but some buyers cites a supplier as being worthy of preferred status while others, in the same supply chain organization, indicated they would rather discontinue the relationship with that supplier? And what are the dangers of a system that awards high scores to poorly performing suppliers?

The consensus was that although the scorecard system was supported by an extensive database that allowed all kinds of rigorous analyses, the data to support the system was still collected and keyed in manually. Furthermore, many scorecard items required subjective judgments. 

On top of this, most buyers had responsibility for frequently inputting data for a large number of suppliers, a heavy burden on top of their “normal” workload. Many in attendance also agreed that the data for the scorecards was keyed in just before, and sometimes after, the cutoff date, meaning that the emphasis was hardly on the quality of the data.  Attendees also acknowledged that supplier scores were used as an indicator of a buyer's job performance. 

The group agreed that their suppliers were held to the same criteria and weights, even though not all suppliers were equally important to the company's success. Also,  internal customers or stakeholders had no way to be part of the measurement process.  

There was also some confusion about what kind of organization qualified as a supplier since some suppliers provided material from multiple locations.  Finally, no clear agreement emerged that the measurement process was contributing to higher performance. 

What are some lessons here?  Clearly, an effective scorecard system requires much more than an elaborate database that can present data in many ways. While that capability is important, technical capabilities do not guarantee system success. And scorecards should not ignore the voices of internal customers. Managers at manufacturing plants, warehouses, distribution centers, and logistics hubs are often perfectly positioned to evaluate suppliers' day-to-day performance. 

Another lesson is that scorecards often place a serious work burden on the individuals responsible for maintaining them, which often results in scorecards that are late or completed at the last minute—which raises concerns about data integrity.  Is a reliance on subjective and last-minute evaluations affecting the integrity of the scores? 

A further conclusion is that scorecard systems can result in too much averaging of data for suppliers that provide goods from more than one location. If a supplier provides goods from a dozen locations around the world, does this call for one scorecard or a dozen? If this supplier pursued certification it would apply to individual sites, not to the entire company. Furthermore, the number of suppliers and the number of shipping points are often very different figures. 

A final lesson is that scorecard systems can drive the wrong behavior. The results will be skewed—and not fit for their intended purpose—if a buyer's performance evaluation is based partly on the performance of suppliers. Worse, the performance is often being determined by scorecards responsibility for completing. 

The conflict of interest is obvious. While most everyone at the company may agree that supplier measurement can be a good thing, it is also evident that the system in place is far from ideal.

Most buyers say continuous improvement in an organization relies on performance “measuring, measuring, and measuring again.” Once a company’s road map for change is laid out, it can develop a set of performance metrics or key performance indicators to ensure that it knows when it is meeting its objectives. Such organizations should choose a limited number of metrics and align executive to management-level measures.

Supply chain performance measurement efforts have been conducted to address the following questions:

1. Why is performance measurement important?

2. What general approaches are available to measure supply chains?

3. What advice can be followed when selecting performance measures?

4. What methods are available for setting performance targets?

5. What are application vendors doing to support performance
measurement?

6. What initial steps should a company execute to get started?

7. Why Is Performance Measurement Important?

8. How does measurement affects supply chain behavior?

9. How does supply chain behavior impact performance?

10. How does performance measurement provides means to assess if supply chain has improved?

​Navy has a large backlog of surface ship maintenance it is trying to dig out of; that’s not new. And while the sea service and ship repair industry are making some progress in cutting back on administrative and other burdens that slow down maintenance availabilities,  contractors are so backed up that the Navy has received zero bids for several recent maintenance availabilities.

Couple the limited space with delays due to poor planning, material not showing up on time, expanding work package scope and more, the waterfront has the potential to create a lot of headaches for ships in repair and the fleet operators planning to deploy them.

There is “no shortage of work to do” to improve on-time figures.

We have outlined barriers Navy and industry face to achieving on-time delivery of ships out of maintenance, as well as several solutions we’re trying to put into play to make the situation on the waterfront more tenable to maintainers and operators.

Our potential to be successful” is determined well before a maintenance availability even starts. When planning products and drawings aren’t completed on time, when items are added to the work scope late, and when materials don’t show up at the repair yard a month ahead of the start of work, the potential to be successful is greatly diminished.

Navy is trying to do better planning on its part, and ensure the yards are doing the same, to increase that chance of being successful.

Must create a well-defined scope of work, that is finalized early, planned appropriately and has good work specifications. To support that, Navy has acknowledged that it is awarding contracts too close to the start of work and now allowing enough time for planning.

“We have lots of data, and we use that data as we’re evaluating progress toward starting an avail. We have not come across an availability yet” that has fully met the goal of having material on hand on time. Sometimes industry thinks it’s okay if the material arrives ahead of need, and sometimes the Navy simply awards contracts too late to support on-time arrival of material.

Another planning effort has to do with assumptions for how long the work should take: “you’re not going to make your schedules if you start out with availability durations that are unrealistic.

“So we went and took a look at how long we were scheduling availabilities for, took a look at the model we used to estimate those availability durations, and we found some areas that probably weren’t giving us very good estimates.”

An Availability Duration Scorecard was created, which took into consideration port capacities and other current data to more accurately predict how long work would take and therefore to help the fleet commanders level-load the ports, rather than creating a backup of ships waiting to get work done.

The scorecard initiative was meant to get after better on-time delivery and creating predictable workloads for repair yards, as wells as efforts to contain growth in the scope of work packages, as primary ways to boost low on-time delivery rates.

Once the availabilities begin, Navy has a lot of requirements that bog repair workers down, further contributing to delays in the work and lengthier availabilities. A hard look at quality assurance checkpoints in particular highlighted to Navy leaders that redundancies and bureaucratic requirements were getting in the way of getting ships fixed up and returned back to the fleet for operations.

After asking industry what requirements they’d like to see nixed, they want a reduction in quality assurance rules. That was “a little far a leap for folks from a risk perspective,” but by working together compromised on a list of quality assurance  checkpoints that represented a 50-percent reduction from previous requirements.

“We think, based on just how long these checkpoints take, it potentially – again, potential, because we haven’t realized anything – it could save a few weeks give or take several days. For the company to be doing blast and paint or something like that under the hull, to stop, to do a four-hour checkpoint callout … there’s a lot of impact to the schedule in wait time that that creates.”

“What we noticed when we started going through it was, there was a lot of duplication of effort already in what we were doing, so that was pretty easy. We really pulled back on  non-critical coded areas, we took a lot of risk in cutting back checkpoints … on non-critically coded areas.

“So there’s a lot more work we can still do there. We have chiseled away at the low-hanging fruit.”

“It’s less about capacity. There’s enough capacity if we just are smarter and more willing to look for that path to yes. Tandem docking is a great idea industry pitched to the Navy and that “we’re transparent and willing to work with anything that they’re interested in trying.”

There was some risk but not as much as one might think: both ships would have to be undocked at the same time, so a delay in one would delay both, but these two particular warships were chosen because the docking portion of their work scopes were almost identical. 

The ships may diverge in the work they need done once the under-hull portion is completed in the dry dock, but they should remain on similar timelines in the dry dock as long as something “extreme” doesn’t happen.

Tandem docking helps increase the capacity of the waterfront. There’s all kinds of ways to leverage that capacity with innovative thinking and the willingness to find a path to yes.

Other innovative ideas aimed at shortening the duration of the availabilities – and therefore making better use of available capacity – are coming from industry partners who are constantly looking for better and more efficient ways to pull shafting, do paint and blast work and more.

A top priority on the Navy side – was improving the relationship between Navy and industry. When I came into the job there was a lot of tension and finger-pointing happening, and we’ve sought to “build a stronger partnership and how we work together to solve problems.”

There is certainly room for improvement on the Navy and contractor side – and an imperative to improve, with operational pressures on the surface fleet increasing when more ships are stuck in port waiting for maintenance. 

Navy does not want for ships will go out on deployment with material deficiencies, so the repair industry must figure out how to get the full scope of work conducted in a shorter timeline without sacrificing quality and safety.
Innovative ideas like tandem docking help, and new technologies and processes that shave days or weeks off of availabilities help. But systematic challenges remain that the Navy/industry team will have to continue to tackle in the long-term.

“The scope of the work is getting much more complex, and that’s challenged some of our industry base. “There’s an excess of work in the port. We are routinely seeing no bids on work, especially on some of the continuous and emergent maintenance availabilities. No one has the capacity.

Workload is excessive and industry will have to look at growing their workforce in particular trade skills to keep up. “We have to get to the point where we’re providing industry incentives to go and hire the people and retain the work force.

There are times industry is limited in taking on work because they don’t have enough welders – specifically aluminum welders – so the Navy needs to prove it can provide stable and predictable workloads over the long-term.

Some contractors are pitching the Pentagon on a new idea for reducing the cost of Naval Fleet: sign an extended multi-year maintenance deal instead of negotiating a new contract every year. There’s also a performance-based twist: industry has to provide enough spare parts to keep the fleet battle-ready.

Navy and industry often negotiate new deals every year to maintain the fleet and negotiations often take most of the year and by the time a contract is signed, it’s time to begin negotiating the next one.

“It’s a commitment on industry’s part to a long-term deal and it would bring along the partners as well as the supply chain and allow us all to establish long-term arrangements with our vendor base.

If there is a multi-year deal industry could bank on having a certain level of money coming into their activities and be able to work long-term arrangements with the vendor base, everybody benefits from that.” 

Industry is proposing that DoD transition to a performance-based logistics approach in which contractors are incentivized to reduce costs. Traditional sustainment concepts measure inputs, whereas performance-based logistics measures success in terms of outputs—in this case, readiness and affordability.

DoD and industry need to negotiate ground rules governing how performance-based logistics would be implemented. Following the pattern used in other performance-based arrangements, including those between prime contractors has with its own suppliers will be sufficient time to earn back its up-front investment. 

Transitioning to long-term increments would eliminate the current practice of annual negotiations for sustainment, a process that results in considerable price variability from year to year. 

By migrating to a system of only one negotiation for a multi-year, DoD would get a more predictable outcome in terms of cost and performance. It would also shift most of the execution risk to industry, which is a common feature of all performance-based logistics contracts.

Industry has the position that both sides will do better with the long-term deal, which will allow us to lock in longer-lead parts contracts and assure its suppliers of steady work at known prices.

Capability and affordability are usually traded off against each other in Pentagon arrangements for supporting combat systems, so leaders want to know why contractor thinks it can simultaneously increase readiness and decrease costs. 

The short answer is examination of the processes surrounding the sustainment function identifying numerous ways in which money can be saved without sacrificing readiness. These include reducing manpower and material costs, improving inventory control, automating tasks and predicting with greater accuracy when maintenance actions will be required.

Industry sees this new performance-based logistics deal as an opportunity to stand behind the product from the sustainment perspective.
​
1.  What is a product support arrangement? 

Product support” and “product support arrangement” is defined as: Product support — the package of support functions required to field and maintain the readiness and operational capability of major weapon systems, subsystems, and components, including all functions related to weapon system readiness. Product support arrangement — a contract, order, or any type of other contractual arrangement for the performance of sustainment or logistics support required for major weapon systems, subsystems, or components.

2. What attributes indicate equipment might be good candidates for a performance based logistics arrangement? 

Every system, sub-system and component that requires maintenance, repair or overhaul subsequent to entry into the inventory should be evaluated to determine whether or not performance based logistics support might be appropriate. Many, but not all systems, sub-systems and components are good  candidates. Attributes indicating to be appropriate include when equipment has reached a level of maturity that potential sustainment providers can reasonably approximate failures Attributes indicating equipment might not be good candidate for a performance based logistics arrangement to include highly complex or new technology equipment entering the inventory where failure rates are completely unpredictable and equipment exiting the inventory after of deploying contract 

3.  How does a program office determine the cost savings/avoidance associated with a performance based logistics  arrangement?
 
Through a Business Case Assessment costs associated with the scope of effort are tracked and the period of performance identified for proposed performance based logistics arrangement. Estimated costs are compared to the current product support solution costs for the same operational outcome to make a determination of anticipated costs for the sustainment options. Undefinitized Contract Actions should not be used in evaluating savings of a performance based logistics  arrangement since contract terms, specifications, or price are not agreed upon before performance is begun under the action. 

4.  What practices and procedures could negatively impact successful performance based logistics implementation? 

Performance based logistics  arrangements are negatively impacted by too many metrics “informational” metrics that are not part of product support responsibility but consume their resources to track, and metrics that work counter to one another Micromanaging workers to the point that it impacts their ability to perform.

5.  What is the appropriate performance based logistics  contract length? 

The performance based logistics  arrangement must be long enough for the provider to recover any investments made to improve their product and/or streamline their processes to meet requirements and give them time to identify issues impacting reliability or improve processes, design the fix, field the improved subsystem or implement the improved processes, and recover the investment. Less complex subsystems and components or arrangements that require less investment to improve may have shorter arrangements. 

6. What should be considered when selecting performance incentives? 

Considerations for selecting performance incentives include ensuring incentives are built upon performance objectives/standards and are realistic, measurable, and attainable also aligning incentives with the effort and contract value and structuring incentives for largest overall impact and avoiding any unintended consequences, while providing value for achieving mission Being careful what you ask for, since you will likely get it and may not be able to afford it – or may not have really needed or wanted it. 

7.  What are the key considerations of performance measurement?

It is essential to translate performance outcomes specified by Warfighter into performance metrics in the arrangement. These metrics must be appropriate for the delegated level of responsibility and outcome assigned to product support provider with measureable unit and time frame. The differences between the top-level performance outcome and the metric included in the arrangement are included below. A Performance Outcome is Requirement typically stated by customer while a performance Measure: is typically a number e.g., “miles per gallon” and “cost per mile”  and a performance Metric is a measure with unit and conditions e.g., “average # miles in traffic” 

8.   What constitutes a good performance metric? 

Good performance metrics should be: Key to achieving and improving performance Linked to system-level objective Appropriate to scope and responsibility Reflective of processes that contractor has control of Specific to a unit of measure Specific to an acceptable range or threshold, able to motivate desired long-term behavior and understood and accepted easy to collect data and verify Readily assessed Able to provide timely feedback.

9. Can performance thresholds be used? 

Thresholds must be established in all cases. Sometimes thresholds and objectives may be used with incentives to deliver the higher performance level: Measurement during a period of Time like number of assets from the depot each period, percentage not mission capable supply Improvement over multiple periods, product improve quality targets period, process eg, increase efficiency and reduce support cost from previous period.

10.  Can these top-level life cycle sustainment outcome metrics be put on contract or should tailored lower-tier metrics be used? 

Top-level sustainment outcome metrics and/or lower-tier metrics can be put on contract. One of the most critical elements of a performance based logistics  strategy is the tailoring of metrics to the operational role of the system and ensuring link of the metrics with the scope of responsibility of the support provider. The platform level and specifics of the arrangement will dictate whether to use top-level outcome metrics, lower-tier metrics or both.