Marine Corps requirements and acquisition officials are working in closer collaboration on the new Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) than the two sides had when planning major programs in the past.
Acquisition-minded officials at Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM) said they are helping in the effort to craft requirements for the new ACV, which is replacing the costly effort to develop an Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV).
“I think what we’re seeing now is this real willingness right from the get-go to say, ‘Hey, we want the technical guys involved early, right away,’” MARCORSYSCOM Commander Brig. Gen. Frank Kelley said in an interview.
Because of the fiscal crunch, the Marine Corps is starting to make so-called cost-capability trades, he said.
“So when we get to brief the senior leadership, those are the things that are talked about right after one another,” Kelley said. “You talk about a capability, we’re going to talk about wha
t it costs you. And not just dollars either, it’s going to cost you in some other piece of performance. So what’s happening is we’re really developing not only relationships but a way of thinking about how we do this.”
The relationship between the acquisition officials at MARCORSYSCOM and the requirements setters at Marine Corps Combat Development Command is perhaps closer than ever.
“What has changed is our involvement from an engineering and technical perspective, and helping inform and do requirements trades,” MARCORSYSCOM Executive Director John Burrow said. “If it’s not technically feasible, or if it costs $1 billion to provide this capability, maybe that’s something that needs to be reconsidered. And the engineering and technical communities are the ones that can inform the requirements community early and up front.”
Conducting detailed cost analyses early in the requirements-setting process, looking at the affordability of buying the systems and of their lifecycle costs, are real “game-changers” in the relationship, Burrow said. And that closer relationship is being utilized on a large scale for the first time with the ACV, which the Marine Corps is in the early stages of planning (Defense Daily, June 13).
“The ACV program is a kind of a culminating point that says, ‘Here’s an opportunity for us to really make this happen…really get the…technical and requirements community together,’” Burrow said.
It was roughly four to five years ago that “the connection with the requirements community was made, (with) recognition that technical assessments in the requirements-development phase could really inform the requirements developers on what’s technically realistic and what’s high-risk,” he said. “It’s just now starting to mature to the point that we think there’s going to be significant impacts on how we do business in the future.”
When examining what the ACV will be, the Marine Corps is asking “what is the art of the possible within certain schedule and cost constraints,” said Jim Smerchansky, deputy commander for systems engineering, interoperability, architectures, and technology.
“Because we know what a really fine expeditionary-fighting vehicle would cost, that was the program that we couldn’t afford,” he said. “So, what are the real big cost drivers? And typically cost drivers tend to be technical in nature.”
Thus, the acquisition community has been tapped to help create, from an engineering perspective, “some trade space in the requirements based on the engineering piece of it,” he said. “That relationship is…really going well by using engineering more in creating the trade space for the requirements community.”
While the ACV program is bringing the acquisition and requirements people together in such a way on a large scale, the MARCORSYSCOM officials emphasized during a joint interview last week this newfangled approach is also being taken on additional efforts, related to areas including energy and lighter materials.
“We’re starting to do it as a matter of practice,” Burrow said.
“The only way to understand the tradoffs of requirements is to understand the physics of the problem; that’s where the engineering comes in,” Smerchansky said, sharing a sentiment he read recently. “Before you make that requirement, understand that if that’s a requirement and that’s a requirement, you’re looking at a very complex system. (Understand what would happen) if you backed off on one, because the physics of the problem says things interact. Survivability interacts with mobility of you’re talking a vehicle. They’re not exclusive in any regard. And that’s what we’re bringing to the table early.”
“That’s really needed in a resource-constrained environment,” he added. “And that’s the changing requirement that everybody’s faced with now.”