Marine Corps officials said the time has come for defense contractors to invest more in weapon technologies, and said they want innovative ideas from anyone who has them.
Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM) leaders told Defense Daily they expect companies to invest more of their money–including internal research and development (IRAD) money from the Pentagon–to create technology advancements that can help develop Marine Corps capabilities. The Marine Corps acquisition officials said they hope defense contractors will start acting more like automotive and computer firms that develop cutting-edge technologies for their customers before presenting the new concepts.
“We want (defense contractors) to step up to the plate, and not just depend on what we’re doing on our side,” MARCORSYSCOM Executive Director John Burrow said in an interview, arguing more emerging technology must be funded outside the government.
“If you (as a company) want to compete and win, you got to have a competitive edge,” he said. “At least one avenue in which that’s going to take place, is (by answering), ‘What technology can you introduce (to the government) that separates you from all others?’ And how quick can you get there?”
Computer companies, Burrow said, don’t transition from one technology to another “because somebody pays them to go do it.”
“They realize the need and they invest and they make it happen, and that’s what we want and that’s what we expect the (defense) industry to do,” he said.
The Marine Corps would like to see more leading-edge scientific concepts from industry, with data to prove the ideas’ engineering and scientific credibility. Once the service receives such self-funded technology concepts from industry, Burrow said, government engineers and scientists can validate the ideas.
“Some of these systems are fairly large and complex, and you’re not going to be able to go from point A to point Z overnight,” he said. “But you can start to make incremental steps that increase the confidence on our side of what you can and can’t do.”
MARCORSYSCOM Commander Brig. Gen. Frank Kelley said in the interview he want to see more non-traditional defense suppliers sharing technological innovations with his service.
Varied Marine Corps officials–working on science and technology, requirements, acquisition, and budgeting–are “all in this together, and we’re…looking out to anybody who thinks that they might have a solution,” Kelley said.
He acknowledged there is some risk in turning to companies that have not worked on weapons programs in the past.
“But there’s also a risk if you just kind of say (for example), ‘Hey, company X, they’re the guys that do heavy combat vehicles, and they’re the only guys,’” Kelley said. “Well they’re not anymore. And we really need to open up.”
Kelley said it would be a “game-changer” if non-traditional suppliers come to the Marine Corps with technologies they already developed, so the service can validate if they work.
Burrow said he doesn’t care which lines of work such non-traditional defense firms are in.
“What I care about is a quality product that’s affordable, that we can count on in combat,” he said. “We can insert technology, capitalize on a number of suppliers. So whether it’s Joe’s Bar and Grill or the largest defense contractor out there, or (a) university, there (are) several avenues to get what we need. But we have to have…those communities realize the opportunities and make investments to capitalize.”
Burrow said he senses a “trend toward” companies at least coming forward with new ideas, though he said they sometimes are lacking the technical detail the Marine Corps wants.
“But the fact that they’re starting to think about it is a good trend anyway,” he said. “We need to transition (science and technology), and we can’t depend on the government to do all the transitions.”