Air Force Life Cycle Industry Days Recap - INFO

Defense
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Earlier this week, I attended the Air Force Life Cycle Industry Days (LCID) in Dayton, OH. LCID is an annual Industry engagement event hosted by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center that affords the opportunity to hear directly from senior Air Force leaders on topics involving defense acquisition and the defense industrial base. Here are a few quick notes from some of the key presentations:

  • Lt Gen Linda Hurry – Commander Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC/CC)
    • AFMC Priorities:
      • Airmen
      • Readiness
      • Innovation
      • Safety
    • Faster Acq, faster test, faster depot, faster supply chain, drive innovation – the drive for speed and readiness is paramount
  • Under Secretary of the Air Force (USECAF) Lohmeir
    • AF has smaller, older fleet than ever before
    • Heritage foundation assessment of USAF (he agrees with)
      • Capabilities 4/5 – Strong
      • Readiness 1/5 – Weak
      • Capacity 2/5 - Weak
    • Focus on the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) – “we need more kit”
    • Majority of his time is spent on readiness
    • New DoW Acquisition Transformation is key – “arsenal of freedom”, acquisition as a warfighting enterprise
      • Eliminate JCIDS process – requirements empowerment back in Services
      • ID’d about 2 dozen laws slowing acquisition down… working on changing them
      • Empowering talented workforce: DRPMs, PAEs have authority (85% of MDA decisions now delegated to the PAEs or lower)
      • Combine PEs and increase reprogramming thresholds
      • Strong push towards multi-year procurements
      • Make Rapid Acquisition authorities and processes the norm
    • Need affordable mass and deeper magazines
  • Gen Dale White (Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM), Critical Systems)
    • Execute Ruthlessly
    • Acquisition is a warfighting function
    • 3 Golden Rules:
      • Empowered execution (his job is to be the bulldozer to clear the path for the PAEs/SMLs executing the programs)
      • Integration over independence (No DRPM unique processes…it’s clearing the way within the existing systems. Although DRPM holds the ultimate authorities, he’s partnering with the AF leadership, staff, and PAEs)
      • Revitalize the partnership with Industry
    • We are killing vendor lock – s/w as separate acquisition, based on open architecture owned by USG
    • Extreme teaming – Industry as true partner
    • Want industry to tell me how to close the kill chain (strong Operational Analysis)
  • Prioritizing Speed and Agility in Contracting Panel
    • Revolutionary FAR overhaul (RFO) – huge potential for massive change to federal contracting rules
    • Contract clearance process is now in conjunction with Acq Strategy review/approval process, eliminating partially duplicative and time-consuming work (this is great news!)
    • AFLCMC has pushed contracting approval authorities to senior contracting officials within the PAEs instead of at AFLCMC level
    • TINA and certified cost accounting are still a massive and time-consuming challenge. TINA-light has potential, but more needs to be done, and it still relies on extensive historical data.
    • Boeing’s perspective: Commercial contracts can be just as challenging and time-consuming as traditional FAR ones…so be judicious in how you approach it.
    • There are now some cases of negotiations without proposal submission…urgency/schedule is king.

BL: The DoW is overhauling how the department acquires goods and services, attempting to empower their workforce, reduce bureaucracy, remove non-value-added barriers…all to enable delivery of capabilities at speed. This is expanding opportunities for the overall DIB, but also presents challenges due to the highly dynamic nature of the answer to the question “how do you contract with DoW?”. Stay tuned, stay alert!

VR,

Mike Jiru