By Geoff Fein
Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) is looking at ways to lower the barrier for entry for small businesses looking to compete for command, control, computer, communication and intelligence (C4I) contracts.
“One of the challenges and one of the things we are trying to do is to figure out how to get maximum competition into the C4I world so that we can get benefit in terms of cost, but also it helps get capability out there,” Chris Miller, program executive officer (PEO) for C4I, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
One avenue of approach for PEO C4I has been to move toward an open architecture approach.
One of the big reasons why PEO C4I is pushing the open architecture effort is to help lower the barrier of entry, figuring out how to get small business more involved and to figure out how to make things more affordable and sustainable over the long run, Miller said.
Miller said there are a number of barriers to entry for small companies.
One is making a level opportunity to the “technology playing field” where they can participate, he said.
“We’ve had an issue over the years where we have been losing some of that opportunity. So the first thing was really figuring out how to standardize and open up the architecture so that I could really attract more small business and incentivize small business to be a part of it,” Miller said.
“Once you figure that out then it becomes really the communication and business model piece. And there I would tell you we have a couple of challenges. One of them is continuing to get the word out to non-DoD [companies],” he added.
PEO C4I does a pretty good job within the Department of Defense (DoD) of engaging small business, Miller said. “They know how to work the system. But what we seem to struggle with still a little bit is trying to get people who traditionally don’t do work for the DoD.”
“We are trying to take a page from what industry does. Sort of opening up the collaborative development environment, making more things available to try and encourage people to come in, reuse and contribute and be part of that process,” Miller added.
Secondly, PEO C4I is also engaging with the small business office here at SPAWAR, and larger Navy organizations like ONR, to really encourage and bring in new ideas and new thoughts and press the envelope and think differently about the problem, Miller said.
“I think we have gone a long ways with our outreach to small business to make it a lot better. I’m not going to say it’s perfect, but I think now we know who to call, how the process works, so I think that has gotten better,” he said. “I will tell you that every time I go to meetings now it’s amazing the number of people doing small business projects that are looking to come work with us and are excited about the stuff we are doing.”
One area C4I could improve, Miller said, is trying to overcome some of the process issues.
“We don’t do very well about [sharing technologies with the other services]…so that if the Air Force develops something with some small business I can’t instantaneously take that into the Navy architecture,” he said. “I have to go through a whole series of certification and testing and those are the kind of things that we are trying to knock down and make easier for companies.”
Miller said C4I is working with the Defense Informations Systems Agency (DISA) and some other organizations. “If they certify something we ought to be able to build on top of that, not necessarily have to redo it. So we are working that.”
Areas where that will become important is in Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), for example, where PEO C4I is sharing things with the Coast Guard and other agencies, Miller added.
One area of opportunity within C4I is the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services, or CANES–a Chief of Naval Operations directed approach to reduce infrastructure and increase capability across afloat network enclaves, according to Miller.
“The CANES piece is really about trying to get our common infrastructure so I can have plug and play software and applications on top,” he said. “Because what used to happen, I used to have this really high barrier of entry, so if I wanted to bring something on to a ship they had to understand how to build hardware and go through shock and vibration, and get it through all the checks and everything, and that was a very hard process.”
Now, by making it really more plug and play, more modular, PEO C4I is significantly lowering the barrier for someone to bring in some new type of application that can be used by our sailors. “That is the first thing I always tell everybody–we’ve got to first figure out how to make it easy.”
The second big area PEO C4I is pushing is MDA. Miller said this is something they are working for the Secretary of the Navy.
“A big component of that is really how to collaborate and share across non-traditional partners, services, organizations,” Miller said. “We are looking for people who have done some neat things with fusion, or with anomaly detection, or collaboration, and these are areas I think small business has some advantage because they are…a little bit more ahead, than some of our larger providers are, today.”
Miller believes there is more opportunity for a broader audience in PEO C4I, although there are opportunities everywhere, he added. “If you are going to contribute to a weapon system or an aircraft, you have to have a little bit different skill set and background. At the end, I’d like to ultimately think that if they do something with us and it works, there are even opportunities to move from my world into the IWS (integrated warfare systems) world or some kind of other platform world,” Miller said.
Because C4I is not designing systems to fire weapons, Miller has a bit more flexibility when it comes to the potential risks associated with working with small companies and the commercial sector.
“We are also able to leverage more from commercial industry, and so I am always looking for that next up and coming application…the next device, that is really going to make a difference in how we fight,” he said. “Just look at what we are doing with chat. Who would have ever thought that these small companies that are building chat collaboration tools would be the backbone of how we do command and control in the Navy today.”