The Navy could restructure acquisition programs that are too slow or prove over time they are unable to adapt to meeting Open Architecture (OA) standards, Mary Lacey, the service’s deputy assistant secretary for research, development, test and evaluation, said yesterday.
“They are at risk of getting help of the kind they might not find so attractive,” Lacey said. Asked which options the Navy could pursue, she said: “We change people sometimes. We change the program structure and requirements. We descope programs and carve pieces of it out and hand it off to someone else.”
Lacey said the Navy’s goal is to avoid taking any of those measures by instead focusing on better training program managers on how to integrate OA standards into the programs and more clearly define requirements.
“At the end of the day, what we really want is to help program managers to get there,” she said on the sidelines of Defense Daily’s 4th annual Open Architecture Summit.
The Navy has identified integrating OA practices into its acquisition strategy as a key priority. OA embraces the use of existing, commercially available technology to produce modular, interoperable systems with open design practices that can be easily upgraded and thereby reduce costs. The goal is reduce numbers of legacy systems that are expensive to maintain and upgrade as the service has come to realize it cannot afford operating older networks in their current state over the long term. The concept has added importance at a time of tighter defense spending.
“We have got to figure out how to deliver products at effective cost,” she said.
The Navy last year issued guidelines for program managers to help them implement OA. But some critics have charged that the service, while outpacing the Air Force and Army, has still been too slow to adapt OA practices and standards. Lacey told the forum that her office will be exerting more oversight on programs to ensure OA standards are met through a “grading sheet.”
“We can dictate that we expect to move to an open architecture kind of environment approach,” she said, adding there are program managers wishing to move to OA practices but don’t have the tools available to do so.
“There are far more of them that have hit the ‘I believe’ button than have hit the ‘I know how’ button,” Lacey said.