In its seven years of operation, Raytheon’s [RTN] warfighter Warfighter Field Operations Customer Support (FOCUS) program has saved the government $300 million, a company executive said.
Raytheon was awarded the $11 billion program in May 2008.
“It matters what we do,” said Bob Williams, vice president of Raytheon Global training Solutions. “What we do at warfighter FOCUS is maintain, operate and sustain all training devices the Army has.”
That means training systems at some 400 locations around the world, and systems such as the almost 320,000 Army virtual trainers.
The program also runs operational training sites such as the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., The Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La., and the Joint Multinational Training Center in Germany. That means Warfighter FOCUS also provides the instrumentation, cameramen, civilians, and analysts who provide various products.
“Training centers transformed the Army,” Williams said. Most were created in the 1980s, and were the “keystone, if not the crucible to rebuild the Army” after Vietnam.
Victory in Desert Storm was “absolutely created years before in that desert out in the Mohave,” at Fort Irwin, he said. “I was never in combat where I hadn’t practiced the thing I had to do previously.”
As well, training is provided to allies.
With about 1,000 employees, specialist training is done in theaters such as Afghanistan–on counter-IED work, specialist vehicles, pilots, including Afghan pilots, and heavy support for special operations forces.
“(Decisive action) training capability has been lost over 10 years of counterinsurgency warfare, Williams said. The Army is now retraining a force that hasn’t done things such as synchronized combat power with air power in its focus on counterinsurgency warfare.
“What’s incredibly wonderful about this (FOCUS) vehicle,” Williams said, is if, for example, a commander of a division is required to deploy to say, Kuwait on short notice, he can request training through the Army’s Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI), and Warfighter FOCUS “within 18-30 days have resources in place.”
The program is extremely responsive and it doesn’t take six months to run a competition for it. The awards have already been made.
Raytheon has a warrior training alliance, “160 companies are part of the (contract) vehicle, 120 are small businesses.” That means when a requirement comes in, the work can be competed in days and contracts for the work awarded.
There is a real place for a pre-existing IDIQ vehicle that can offer services very quickly in support of operations specifically related to training, life-cycle training and devices, Williams said.
Efficiencies and streamlining in the program saved the government the $300 million.
For example, Ft. Hood, Texas has live fire ranges, a large suite of virtual and constructive training devices. Before Warrior FOCUS, there were separate contracts, and separate contractors to run ranges, virtual training devices and the constructive simulation center. The different training systems were manned all the time, whether being used or not, and those who worked on ranges did not work at the simulation center.
When Raytheon took over, Williams said, they looked at utilization rates of all the training, and realized if the workers were trained to do all three different types of training, then they could be moved from one area to another. This reduced the size of the workforce, which would move around depending on where they were needed.
“We save lot of money and the workforce is maybe one-third the size,” now, Williams said. And that was done at other locations. The streamlined processes have resulted in a 76 percent decrease in task order turn-around time.
“The (Army) Chief of Staff is clear he wants a well-trained Army, whatever the size and the requirements to do that remain,” Williams said. “We see it in the budget: a commitment to O&M funding.”
Back in the 1970s, when Williams entered the Army, ranges were rudimentary devices–soldiers went to the ranges and set up their own targets. “It was soldier labor. Not an efficient use of unit time.”
As technology and platforms evolved, the training and ranges have to reflect that sophistication, he said. Some ranges can be the size of New Jersey. Now ranges are digitally equipped, targets are run by computer; and some are heated, since tanks, for example, don’t acquire targets by optics, but by forward looking infrared. And training devices have become more complex and sophisticated.
The success of the Warfighter FOCUS program shows there’s a place in certain programs where an IDIQ contract works well and can realize efficiencies, Williams said.