Description
Organization: NAVSEA, PEO (SUB), PEO (USW), PMS 425
Team Name: Acoustic-Rapid COTS Insertion (A-RCI) and the Advanced Processing Build (APB) Team
Related Acquisition Topic(s): Commercial Practices, Commercial and Non Developmental Items (CANDI), Cycle Time Reduction (CTR), Evolutionary Acquisition, Financial Management, Open Systems, Partnering, Specifications and Standards
Description:
By linking Advanced Development efforts with Engineering Manufacturing & Development efforts using common COTS hardware and system architecture and baseline software has reduced the traditional transition time of anywhere from 5-12 years to a integration effort of approximately eighteen months. Long term savings are expected through continued introduction of future APBs with integration costs of approximately $2.5 - 10M/APB as opposed to independent, stovepiped E&MD costing between $50 to $75M/development. The Acoustics - Rapid COTS Insertion (A-RCI) program has delivered significant improvements to the fleet in just 18 months after approval to enter Milestone II. As part of a joint initiative between Program Executive Officer Submarines (PEO SUBS) and PEO Undersea Warfare (PEO USW), the first Advanced Processing Build (TA APB 98) has been demonstrated (May 98) at sea and has been integrated and delivered with A-RCI Phase II, just one year later, currently there are 11 A-RCI Phase II systems installed in the Fleet. This effort will mark a dramatic shift in the way the Navy procures its technology. The following diagram (See Supporting Documentation) maps out the transition process and lists some of the innovations being applied with their results:
Innovative progress based on experimentation and iteration
Build-test-build paradigm
Evolutionary sonar improvement program
Focus on data analysis based on at-sea experimentation
Utilize encounter data recorded from existing systems
Fleet involvement in testing and improvement of prototypes
Seven-fold improvement in Towed Array Broadband detection and tracking ranges
Improvements with existing sensors
Significant improvement in exploiting unique submarine propulsion transients
Integrating Defense with the Commercial Base and Practices:
The A-RCI contract was issued only citing four MIL-STDs which were needed for ship interface requirements. A-RCI is practically all Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, built to commercial standard Open Systems Architecture and Interface requirements. One of the cornerstones of the A-RCI program is the MultiPurpose Processor (MPP) developed by an innovative SBIR contractor rather than the traditional Defense Industry OEM/Primes. The A-RCI program and APB process has formalized an open business practices between government, industry, Navy Labs and academia incentivizing industry through Broad Agency Announcements (BAAs) and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIRs) to participate upfront and as part of the product selection of candidate solutions to be integrated with the tactical systems. The A-RCI program has partnered with other ASW/USW users in the Navy community and is extending the usage of A-RCI products and APB processes with a common acoustic processor to the IUSS and AN/SQQ-89 Acoustic subsystems programs. This is a significant event of breaking the traditional practice of building one of a kind systems for each requirement.
Institutionalized Continuous Improvement
In a joint effort the A-RCI/APB team has institutionalized a continuous improvement process with all the stakeholders to provide for tactical superiority with current state of the practice technology for the current and emerging threat. The Sonar Development Working Group was created to formalize the process of:
accelerating advanced development products to the fleet
provide a disciplined process for the evaluation of candidate solutions including features of "peer review", use of real at sea data, and common data sets for the evaluations to arrive at "ground truth" comparisons
use of common baseline hardware and software between advanced development to significant reduce the amount of time and effort associated with transitioning products to tactical systems
The SDWG is engaged in regular, open communication with Fleet users, LABs, academia, industry and resource sponsors to ensure a cohesive approach to providing improvements to the Fleet
The SDWG anticipates change instead of reacting to it. The SDWG has focused the Science and Technology community to ensure their R&D efforts are directly applied to solving the fleets needs. The formal feedback to S&T allows for focused R&D and maintains a continuos technology/capability flow into the APB process.
Reducing Life Cycle Costs:
As stated earlier A-RCI has reduced the traditional transition time of anywhere from 5-12 years to a integration effort of approximately eighteen months. Long term savings are expected through continued introduction of future APBs with integration costs of approximately $2.5 - 10M/APB as opposed to independent, stovepiped E&MD costing between $50 to $75M/development. Leveraging development efforts with NSSN C3I via an Integrated Development Plan provided over $10M of costs savings. Pursuit of the common acoustic processor with the IUSS community, while not producing savings, is making improvements to that program affordable within controls for Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) and PEO-USW for the AN/SQQ-89 program as well. In addition, application of a coordinated effort between providing for COTS technology refreshment requirements with a technology insertion needs to support APB improvements will provide for significant savings in the outyears while maintaining supportable hardware in the fleet with increased capability.
Reduce Cycle Time For Delivering Equipment and Services:
By linking Advanced Development efforts with Engineering Manufacturing & Development efforts using common COTS hardware and system architecture and baseline software has reduced the traditional transition time of anywhere from 5-12 years to a integration effort of approximately eighteen months.
