Air Force Open Systems Acquisition June 2015 Brief

Distribution A. Approved for public release; distribution unlimited. (88ABW-2015-2785)
Integrity  Service  Excellence
Air Force Open Systems
Acquisition
June 2015
Michael J. Mayhew, DR-III
AFRL/RIEB
Michael.Mayhew.1@us.af.mil
Air Force Research Laboratory

OPEN SYSTEMS ACQUISITION (OSA)
SAF/AQ Office of Transformational
Innovation (OTI) brief
Dr. Camron Gorguinpour
Bending the
Cost Curve
2

• OBJECTIVE: Modernize Command, Control, Communications, and Cyber Intelligence
Surveillance & Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Information Systems using agile developed “plug-n-
play” technologies via modern open systems architectures.
• BENEFITS: Provide open, agile, information-based, services oriented system built upon
modern Open System Approaches that will significantly change the way our systems
currently perform and provide rapid adaptation and integration of new capabilities.
• SCOPE: Research, development, test, engineering, certification, modeling and
simulations, measurement, and integration of tools using an innovative, rapid acquisition
process for Air Force “open-systems” based C4ISR Information Systems (Such as:
Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS), Theater Battle Management Core Systems
(TBMCS), Air Operations Center- Weapons System (AOC WS), and others).
OSA EXPERIMENT &
OTHER-TRANSACTION OBJECTIVES
3

HOW IT WORKS
4

LEARN BY DOING
Thriving market of rapidly evolving,
pre-approved, interoperable capability
One project, one program
Several projects/programs
USAF OTA $99M ceiling
Fielded prototype Sustained off-the-shelf
capability
Well established best practice
FY15
FY16 FY17
Crawl Walk Teleport
5

ITERATIVE WORKFLOW
6

OSA UNIQUE FEATURES
• Collaboration between SAF/AQ, AFRL/RI, and Information Systems
Special Projects Offices (SPOs) promotes:
– Technologies integrated within modernized infrastructures
– Significant expansion of performance & agility
– Significant decreases in time to field, lifecycle management, and cost.
• Combination of non-traditional contractors with traditional mentors
(Consortium) provides iterative rapidly developed/integrated
capabilities
• Use of modernized open architectures provides capabilities that
meet warfighter requirements over the program lifecycle
• New & existing OTs enable and encourages broader range of
commercial firms to help in developing defense systems
7

DCGS OSA EXPERIMENT
MULTI-RELEASABLE INTELLIGENCE PRODUCT (MRIP)
Mission
Thread
Identification
Vendor
Development
& Testing
Training for
Plug-Test
Event
Plug-Test
Event
Plug-Test
Evaluation
Request for
Proposal
Post Award
Contract
Transition to
Weapons
System
Virtualized Env. To Test Facilitators
To Test Team
Scenario & Rqmts. Government Test
Capability Eval. Vendor Plan & SOW Additional Dev.
Product LMC
A & A Testing
Integration w / WS
We Are Here
Sample Data Sets
TEMs w/ vendors
Document Eval.
Gov. Down-Select
Contract Negotiations
Contract Awards
8

LESSONS LEARNED
The following slides represent a sampling of some of the
lessons learned in planning, leading, and testing new agile
capabilities utilizing Open System Acquisition concepts for
Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) Modernization
9

LESSONS LEARNED
(BENDING THE COST CURVE)
• OTA vehicles promote agility, but current policy and acquisition processes need
improvement – While OTAs promote agility for non-traditional performers to get their products the
field, there are a number of improvements that can be made in setting up and maintaining those
vehicles to promote improved timeliness of awards
• Open System Acquisition (OSA) requires agility that many weapons systems are not ready to
adapt to – Most legacy systems are old and un-adaptive to modern technologies. Trying to cobble
these together into a cohesive system is problematic. Systems must first adopt Open Systems
Architectures and solid Services Interfaces before we can truly see the benefits of OSA
• With constant experimentation and augmentation; OSA benefits to the development and
sustainment of our weapons systems can be achieved – With only a handful of experiments on-
going, a number of lessons learned have already been achieved, and frequent revisions to the
model will greatly improve the status quo for future experiments
10

LESSONS LEARNED
(BENDING THE COST CURVE)
• Hanscom milCloud isn’t free – There is a large footprint of support, education, and systems
administration that is needed to provide a virtual environment for vendors to work in
• Collaboration with SPOs to clearly define mission thread and system requirements up front is
critical to success – There must be operator buy-in to the technology being developed and it must
be well described to vendors that articulates why the mission is important
• Ensure support environment and all data artifacts are available before vendors are added –
Trying to update as you go, is problematic and frustrates vendors who are always having to adapt to
newly added components and data
• Limiting data and documentation of operational weapon systems is extremely challenging -
Doing so requires significant time and effort to tailor artifacts for open dissemination – Verisign ECA
cert process was also deemed difficult and often unresponsive by performers
11

LESSONS LEARNED
(INTERACTION WITH CONSORTIUM)
• Membership fees must to be fair to all – Participation of non-traditional performers come in all
sizes and having a one-size fee severely impacts membership and hampers performer satisfaction
• Consortium must be agile and responsive to its performers – Open Systems Acquisition (OSA)
requires lots of flexibility and rapid reaction to changes along the way. Performers get frustrated
when consortium can’t quickly adapt to their needs when requested
• Consortium must actively promote new membership and engage on member teaming –
Emerging non-traditional performers need to understand the benefits of membership in order to
entice them to join. Existing members must engage with new members and work closer together to
increase teaming
• Consortium must clearly identify the services being provided to its members – Members need
to understand what benefits the consortium provides that can help them in receiving new contract
awards
12

LESSONS LEARNED
(INTERACTION WITH CONSORTIUM)
• Constant interaction with performers during development is critical for success – Through
frequent training sessions, active on-line forum collaboration, and technical exchanges with all
members of the team; performers feel welcomed, maintain synergy, and actively participate in
shaping the technology to meet the needs of the users
• Video and other Teleconferencing must be augmented with face-to-face exchanges – Vendors
love the frequency of interaction, but assembling all the players together for face-to-face exchanges
is problematic and expensive. However, a mixture of both proves to be a valuable forum to explain
key concepts as well as engage vendors in expressing their ideas
• Maintain a common POC and forum for rapid response to team needs and concerns –
Performers in agile environments need constant attention to their needs. Having a single voice /
forum to engage with them ensures all feedback is unified and the message remains clear and
focused
13

LESSONS LEARNED
(PLUG TEST AND BEYOND..)
• Coming Soon…..
14

LESSONS LEARNED
(FEEDBACK SAMPLINGS)
15

LESSONS LEARNED
(WHAT PERFORMERS SAID…)
“HmC works great. Very responsive and
effective support.”
“HmC environment saves tons of time.”
“A lot of time spent trying to understand the 'as is' process
and baseline applications - our 'point of departure' so to
speak. 04/23 TEM helped. Recommend explicitly
documenting 'as is' work process via e.g. screen movies.”
“TEMs have been well prepared. Back and
forth discussion on 04/23 TEM has been
outstanding.”
“Verisign ECA cert support is really bad.”
16

PARTNERING FOR SUCCESS
• As with all BTCC activities, success cannot be achieved without
significant collaboration with industry:
– Join the Open System Acquisition Consortium (or compete in the RFP process to
establish the consortium)
– AFRL DRAFT RFP for the first Air Force Open System Acquisition Consortium, View
on FedBizOpps or www.plugfestplus.org
– Tell a friend
• Partnerships with other DOD and federal agencies is also critical:
– Open System Acquisition vehicle is available to all government
entities
– Input from other potential government customers is
incredibly valuable
– Tell more friends
17

CONCLUSION
• The Air Force is committed to identifying and implementing
innovative business approaches to deliver better, faster, and
cheaper capabilities to our Airmen
• Open Architecture Systems are an integral part of Air Force goals,
but current business practices are prohibitive
• Open System Acquisition efforts aim to close that gap
• Continued partnerships with industry (and other government
agencies) are integral to building a viable acquisition process for the
21st Century
18

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Air Force Open Systems Acquisition June 2015 Brief

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