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Acquisition Research Program Newsletter

January 14, 2022       —       Issue 84

This week's Surface Navy Association conference generated plenty of updates and perspectives on the state of the Navy. We include a few here for you: Members of Congress questioned why future fleet composition is still an unknown, and a range of Naval leaders both touted advancements (such as new unmanned tech) and bemoaned the service's slow improvement on long-standing challenges like maintenance.

Wednesday brought the House Appropriations Committee hearing on the impact of continuing resolutions on DoD. The military leaders gave ample evidence of the programs that would be delayed or not started under a year-long CR, including work on emerging technologies. A common refrain was the impact on personnel, from an unfunded pay raise to severe reductions in change of stations and other moves. The nascent Space Force arguably has the most to lose in this holding pattern, failing to receive $2 billion of its budget. See the  link to Admiral Gilday's prepared testimony in our "Congress" section. This week's top story piggybacks on the need for funds appropriated in FY2022, as DoD looks to get started with the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve fund. 

In acquisition news, the Defense Information Systems Agency is taking on cloud resellers, arguing it's not worth paying for a company whose primary value is navigating federal acquisition bureaucracy, rather than providing technical expertise. Coming in April, DUNS numbers will officially be retired and replaced by Unique Entity Identifiers, bringing an end to the private company's monopoly on a key aspect of acquisition data. And the Space Force adds weather information as the next capability to be provided as a service.  

In ARP news, we're excited to share student research from recent NPS graduates who developed an interactive tool to help identify contracts most at risk for supporting human trafficking. Captain Willis Crouch explained his team's motivation for the research: We are all contracting officers, and after finding out there was human trafficking on DoD contracts, we didn’t want to go back to our career field without having done something about it. 

This Week's Top Story 

Pentagon tech chief says new rapid experimentation reserve is moving forward
Courtney Albon, C4ISRNET

In this Oct. 15, 2021, photo, Heidi Shyu participates in a virtual event from the Pentagon. (U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Brittany A. Chase/DoD)

The Pentagon’s top technology official says Congress is on board with a proposed rapid experimentation reserve, and she expects lawmakers to approve initial funding for the effort in fiscal 2022.

The Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve is a new initiative from the U.S. Department of Defense’s research and engineering shop meant to address high-need capability gaps across the military. From more than 200 proposals, the department has selected 32 projects and hopes to begin demonstrations in fiscal 2023.

To prepare for those demos, the department needs funding in fiscal 2022 it didn’t include in its budget proposal. Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu told reporters today she expects Congress to deliver on a late request from the Pentagon to add funding in the forthcoming appropriations bill.

“They’re actually plussing me up more than I asked for,” Shyu said during a Defense Writers Group event.

Shyu wouldn’t say how much money she asked Congress to add for RDER in fiscal 2022. Asked what the department included in its fiscal 2023 program objective memorandum, she said only that it was less than $1 billion.

ARP and NPS News

NPS Students Develop Risk-based Tool to Steer Government Procurement Clear of Human Trafficking

ARP-supported student researchers have developed a tool that allows agencies to pinpoint the agencies, firms, and markets that are most at risk of human trafficking based on type of market, location of market, dollars and actions completed and State Department intelligence. For the past year, Crouch, Peaslee, and Morris have worked with the DoD Combatting Trafficking in Persons Program Management Office (CTIP PMO) to prevent, monitor and respond to human trafficking risk in defense acquisition using federal spending data.

Read more about their work, see the dashboard in action, and review their thesis. 

Rapid Acquisition Workshop
February 2, 2022  |  10:00am-3:30pm PST

Walk in the shoes of decision makers seeking to field an urgently needed capability

Join facilitator Dr. Bob Mortlock in this virtual professional development opportunity to walk through a case study of a real defense acquisition program in which speed was the #1 priority.

Dr. Mortlock's case studies are based on real-world defense acquisition programs and have been published in peer-reviewed journal articles and/or technical reports.  Numerous GAO Reports as well as previous NDAAs have emphasized the importance of educating (i.e., developing) members of the acquisition workforce.  However, the greater acquisition workforce rarely gets the opportunity to read and study these case studies.  This opportunity fills that training and education gap. Students can place themselves in the case as the “protagonist,” ask themselves what they would do, and justify their recommendations based on facts presented in the case.  Learn more. 

Acquisition and Innovation

SWAC ponders acquisition strategy, limits of user terminals in future SATCOM plan
Theresa Hitchens, Breaking Defense

US Space Force considers purchasing weather data as a service
Courtney Albon, C4ISRNET

For their next acts, former Trump administration DoD officials look beyond traditional defense contractors
Jen Judson, Defense News

DISA to industry: Resellers, system integrators need not apply to provide cloud services
Jason Miller, Federal News Network

Bill to create supply chain risk training program for federal employees clears Senate
John Hewitt Jones, Fedscoop

Senior Senate defense committee staffer joins NDIA
Tony Bertuca, Inside Defense

Opportunity: Defense Data Grand Prix
Acquisition Innovation Research Center

Research

Availability and Use of Aircraft in the Air Force and Navy
Congressional Budget Office

Long-Term Costs of the Administration’s 2022 Defense Budget
Congressional Budget Office

Policy

Transition of the Data Universal Numbering System Number to the Unique Entity Identifier in the System for Awards Management
Principal Director, Defense Pricing and Contracting

Defense and Federal Government

DOD Launches New University Consortium for Cybersecurity
Joe Billingsley, DoD News

Navy should be ‘offended’ by its own maintenance and manning faults, admiral says
Megan Eckstein and Diana Stancy Correll, Defense News

Space Force on track to absorb Space Development Agency this fall
Sandra Erwin, Space News

Fates of 12 DOD Advisory Boards Have Yet to Be Announced
Amanda Miller, Air Force Magazine

President nominates new chief for National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Nathan Strout, C4ISRNET

Commentary: The Small, the Agile, and the Many
Steve Blank, USNI Proceedings

Commentary: Reforming The Defense Department’s Planning, Programming, Budgeting, And Execution Process
Thomas Spoehr and Frederico Bartels, War on the Rocks

Congress

Pentagon says full-year CR would cut its 2022 spending by more than $20B
Jared Serbu, Federal News Network

Statement Of Admiral Michael M. Gilday, Chief Of Naval Operations On The Impact Of Continuing Resolutions To The United States Navy Before The House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee On Defense

Unfinished budget work will drag into February
Leo Shane III, Defense News

Navy Blasted as Ineffective on Capitol Hill as Budget Crisis Looms
Konstantin Toropin and Rebecca Kheel, Military.com

Commentary: DoD's biggest problems with a continuing resolution come from Congress  
Kurt Couchman and Russ Duerstine, The Hill

Michelle V. J. Johnson, PhD
Communications Manager, Contractor Support
Acquisition Research Program at Naval Postgraduate School
p: (704) 689-5998   |   e: michelle.johnson.ctr@nps.edu