The U.S. Army’s effort to streamline the force and modernize its acquisitions is only weeks away from rolling out and relies on improved collaboration between the service, engineers, and industry, a top official announced on Wednesday.
The Army Transformation Initiative (ATI), which was announced in May to overhaul the Army’s acquisition and operational planning strategies, will soon roll out, according to Gen. Randy George, chief of staff of the Army, who spoke at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting.
As part of the preparation for that rollout, Gen. George said that the Army has been working to be more collaborative with industry partners on how to best acquire at speed.
“I know we can move it to speed. I think we’re … proving that what we need is this kind of feedback … this is part of what we’re getting ready to do here with some … acquisition reform that we’ve been talking about, which we’ll roll out here in the next couple of weeks,” said the general.
“But to move at speed we need to know, oftentimes, where you’re challenged, and that’s what we’re trying to do, is have this conversation,” he said, speaking to industry members.
That upcoming reform and other modernization efforts aren’t just about new policy – it’s about changing the culture behind acquisition, Gen. George said. He explained that recently, the service has been moving toward “process innovation” aimed at simplifying requirements.
Specifically, that shift means moving to focusing on problems, not paperwork.
“We just need to express [and] explain what problems we’re trying to solve,” said Gen. George.
“We’re cutting old requirements, we’re going through [them]. We have a process right now that we are doing to make sure that we are re-looking [over] every process or every requirement that we have out there in the Army and validating that, and [asking] ‘how do we simplify that process?’” the general added.
When the Army announced ATI earlier this spring, it revealed that $48 billion in spending over the next five years will be redirected or eliminated under the effort, supported by its reassessment of all requirements and prioritization of programs that contribute to increased lethality.
That overhaul will also include performance-based contracts to minimize waste and the adoption of multi-year procurement strategies when cost-effective, according to statements by Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll in front of Congress earlier this year.
More details on that effort were also announced in greater detail earlier this week by Driscoll, who dubbed the Army’s capital funding model as “FUZE.”