By Geoff Fein
Because of the time system development can take, encountering parts obsolescence can be an ongoing struggle, according to a top Navy official.
That is why the move toward open architecture (OA) is so vital, Rear Adm. Michael Frick, vice commander, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
“If we start with the development of a system today, whether it’s a combat system, missile processor, it doesn’t matter what you talk about, by the time you go through the development, two, three, four, five years, whatever it is, technology has shifted,” he said. “The parts you had originally looked to build into it become obsolete for the most part so now you have to look at how do you bring in the new [parts].”
That’s done through the OA methodology, Frick said. That enables the ability to plug in new technology where a program official may have started with the thought of using an older technology.
“That’s how you are going to improve it in spiral development downstream after delivery,” he added.
“Part of the reason we have looked toward going to OA is that it allows you to delay naming the pieces that you want to plug in until the end game of the development/delivery so that you are actually bring in the newer piece of equipment,” he said. “And it still meets or exceeds the requirement.”
The other reason for the move toward OA is that sometimes officials have to avoid whetting their appetite with the 100 percent solution, Frick noted.
“Because going from the 80 percent solution to the 100 percent solution…that’s where the huge cost driver seems to go in. But if you can get to what is good enough to use today with the understanding that if you need to you can modify it later, you probably can do things quicker and less expensive and get fielded into the fleet a lot faster,” he said. “Those are the reasons. That’s why we are doing a lot of the things we are doing. Do we need to improve? We are always going to need to improve, that’s just the way we have to do business.”
Frick retires today from the Navy, although he officially won’t be out of office until September. Frick served 12 years at NAVSEA and has been in the Navy for 38 years. During that time, he has been main propulsion assistant and then weapons officer on USS Carpenter (DD-825), he served as the major program manager for the Rolling Airframe Missile/Phalanx Close-in Weapon System, was then assigned to PEO Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) as the major program manager, command and control (Networks/Excomm) in March 2002. In this position, he directed and managed the ACAT ID Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) program, all Navigation, Displays and Processors programs, and track management and sensor netting initiatives. Frick served as PEO IWS from July 2005 to August 2007.
Frick noted that he has been very fortunate to work on programs that have had successful outcomes.
One successful effort was the CEC program. “That’s a marvelous technology that we have that’s unique in the world,” he said.
He also acknowledged some of the missile and gun developments he managed and worked on.
“It’s very satisfying to know the fleet has those and is better off for the future. That’s what’s been fun about this. That’s one of the reasons I shifted from driving ships to working in this field. I wanted to develop things that changed the future of how we deploy things.
Frick also sees a future where advancements and breakthroughs in technology will help drive the Navy away from dependence on fossil fuels.
“I firmly believe that some of the things developing in the nanotechnology world and energy densities will be the breakthroughs we need in 10 to 15 years to really help us break the dependence on foreign oil,” he said. “I know the Navy has many projects [that are] going to try to make us less dependent on oil. We are looking at alternative fuels on ships, doing it on aircraft, looking at modifying engineering plants so that we can put a [sort of] hybrid drive so that we generate electricity off of the power that’s going into the propeller.”
For the 12 years he has been at NAVSEA, Frick said he has seen the whole organization morph and change as it goes forward, getting more proficient and efficient in how it does business.
“I have seen it from IWS prospective and we are continuing down this path as far as I can see, shifting into the COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) OA environment. That’s where we have to go,” he said.
“As we’ve looked at how we procure systems, we have to continue to get better at how we manage them, always looking for better ways of doing business,” Frick added.
As the Navy procures systems, it needs to continue to get better at how it manages contracts, how requirements are set early on and then making sure officials stick to those requirements to avoid substantial changes getting thrown in as the development process moves forward
“If we deliver what we first said we were going to do, and then if you have to modify, do that afterward…spiral development…build a little test a little, build a little test a little…you can get your processes a lot better that way,” Frick said.