The Navy’s top acquisition official has directed members of Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command to create a new management and sustainment coordination cell to oversee information technology programs across the service.
In a May 19 memorandum issued by Navy procurement executive Sean Stackley, SPAWAR was directed to carryout a wide-ranging assessment of potential organizational options “to establish an in-service support organization.”
Working close coordination with the Navy’s office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Information Operations, and Space, the new organization will ensure “an acquisition organizational alignment that will most effectively…deliver and support critical warfighting capabilities” in the IT realm, Stackley writes.
An interim report on the effort is due to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead by next month. At press time, a Navy spokeswoman had not yet responded to queries regarding the new IT coordination group or the upcoming preliminary report.
Plans to stand up this new SPAWAR-based in-service support cell falls in line with draft guidance issued by the CNO on integration of a new Navy-wide IT strategy.
Along with SPAWAR, the Navy’s information dominance directorate and Fleet Cyber are working toward a slate of critical milestones key to implementing that new strategy. (Defense Daily, June 22).
In addition to the new in-service organization, SPAWAR is working plans for a new implementation and resourcing strategy for “new and legacy Navy information systems and networks” and associated requirements for IT systems both at sea and ashore
However, the implementation plan, as well as the strategy itself, is still under review by senior Navy brass. Roughead has yet to approve a final version of either plan.
However, if the SPAWAR effort continues as outlined, the new organization will be patterned closely after existing directorates within Navy Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), the memo states. As envisioned, the group will be a hybrid of the SEA 07 and SEA 21 shops within NAVSEA.
SEA 07 is tasked with providing “a full spectrum of research, development, test and evaluation…engineering and fleet support services” for the Navy’s submarine fleet, according to the command’s website. Conversley, SEA 21 is responsible for managing maintenance and modernization work on all non-nuclear surface ships.
That said, the final organizational plan presented to Navy leaders “should assume there will be no additional fiscal or personnel resources” dedicated solely to this effort, according to Stackley, who noted a “resource realignment” blueprint will be required to support the new office.
The notion to create the new office was spawned by the fact that SPAWAR lacked any organization with direct management authority over in-service programs, as directed in September 2007 guidance issued by then-Navy Secretary Donald Winter.
That gap, according to Stackley, “resulted in program executive offices managing both future acquisitions and in-service issues” for SPAWAR, the memo states.