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By John Higgins, PEO IEW&S Public Affairs

Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski, the Principal Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology), laid down his plans for Army acquisition just before the New Year, in a whirlwind tour of Program Executive Offices and Joint Program Executive Offices throughout the Continental United States.

“Go to the Navy: they got this thing called an ACAT [Acquisition Category] IV,” Ostrowski told Program Executive Office Intelligence Electronic Warfare and Sensors (PEO IEW&S) and other PEO’S in December.

Acquisition Category IV was exclusive to the Navy and Marines until very recently. It designates either testing or monitoring of a product. Further, those ACAT IV items will be directly managed at the Colonel (O-6) or Civilian GS-15 level.

Following Ostrowski’s directive, 22 programs under PEO IEW&S will be changed to ACAT IV.

Another key difference built into the ACAT IV is two separate categories: IVT (Test) and IVM (Monitor). ACAT IV-T programs require Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) while ACAT IV-M programs do not.

These separate categories gives the Army the ability to “fly before you buy” and by extension, “buy down risk,” two terms Ostrowski has made part of the Army Acquisitions thought process. First, “fly before you buy” allows the Army test the products early in their prototype phase and second “buy down risk” meaning be prepared to spend more in the prototyping phase so you aren’t spending more in the fielding phase.

“’Buy down risk’ for the U.S. Government means, from my perspective, we know what we don’t want to do.” said Dr. Wade McCollin, the Deputy Chief of Staff for PEO IEW&S. “What we don’t want to do is have a program where you got through a complete development cycle before testing and have to use more of our dollars to fix it. This way we make sure it works and meets the requirements before you even get it into the production phase.”

“What we’re transitioning to right now is a place where we go out to the contractors and tell them the capability we’re looking for, make them understand the requirement on a fundamental level so they can perform a demonstration of capability that meets what we need, ‘test’ it, ‘fix’ the clear issues, ‘test’ again’ and ‘fly” it.” said McCollin.

This means, among other things, seeking more user input earlier in the process so rather than speculate as how to fulfill a specific need, the need is guided by precisely the people who will be using the equipment: Soldiers.

Another aspect means pushing industry partners harder to bring more to table.

“We’re pushing the industry to bring things to the table that are far more ready for the warfighter than before,” said McCollin. “This condenses the timeline which means from an Army standpoint of risk – either financial, schedule or technical risk- is reduced.”

Tim Baker, the Program Integration and Cost Chief for PEO IEW&S’s PACE team, had further incite.

“Within PEO IEW&S we have implemented a Leading Performance Indicator (LPI) Framework for more rigorous proactive oversight of our performers,” Baker said. “We are challenging our PMs and their contractors to perform as promised if not better! As the LPI process matures it should enable better predictive analysis improving confidence and allowing our focus to shift from excessive reporting to the business of getting the latest capabilities into the hands of the Warfighter.

Additionally, legislation has been laid out in National Defense Authorization Act language providing more delegated authority for rapid prototyping and rapid fielding.”

In order to ensure these new measures meet the Army’s needs, Maj. Gen. Kirk Vollmecke, the PEO of IEW&S, has mandated that Project Managers (PM) move certain programs into ACAT IV, following his unofficial mantra to “deliver now.”

Joseph Bucci, the Deputy PEO for IEW&S, saw another important aspect of implementing ACAT IV, bolstering experience and responsibility of acquisition professionals at a faster rate.

“At the O-6 level, they’re the future general officers.” said Bucci. “They’re the future PEO’s and deputy PEO’s and I would offer the first time they become a milestone decision authority probably should not be at the PEO level. So now they have some ACAT IV designated programs before they have an entire portfolio where they make a bulk of the decisions. Pushing the Milestone Decision Authority down to the O-6 level helps with the entire culture and training aspect, so when they come to the PEO level they understand what the MDA is all about.”

Bucci views this as a natural step, since the Army uses Centrally Selected List (CSL) to find their Program Managers, part of a meticulous process to find Acquisition professionals.

“They compete against every other colonel in the Army in the acquisition field for these jobs: it’s extremely selective.” said Bucci. “I think that we’re actually empowering those officers better and we’re making better use of and getting a better return on that central selection investment that we make. It’s an involved expensive process to make a CSL.”

“The appetite for long programs is over,” said Col. Marty Hagenston, the Project Manager for Electronic Warfare & Cyber. “We’ve got to make sure that we take advantage of all opportunities to get capability out as soon as it’s ready as quick as we can.”

“The operational based capabilities stemming from immediate theater requirements have given us the opportunity to change the program of record path from development through testing and support to craft a more adaptive program that can accommodate direct user feedback and changes in the operational environment.” Hagenston concluded.

The PM’s that have products moving to ACAT IV are Electronic Warfare & Cyber (EW&C), Sensors-Aerial Intelligence (SAI), Air Craft Survivability Equipment (ASE), DoD Biometrics and Product Manager Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities (PdD TENCAP).

In total, 22 programs will be change to ACAT IV.

PM ASE’s Laser Detection System (LDS), and PM TS’s Automated Integrated Survey Instrument (AISI), Global Positioning System-Survey (GPS-S), Instrument Set Reconnaissance and Surveying (common name: ENFIRE), Tactical Security System (TSS), Vehicle Optics Sensor System (VOSS) from PM TS.

PM EW&C has the lion’s share of products changed to ACAT IV with Radio Frequency Interference Mitigation, Gator, Thor, Baldr, Universal Test System, Cyberspace Tool Development Environment and Platforms/Rapid Cyberspace Development Network, United States Army Europe (USAREUR)Phase1, USAREUR Phase 2, Tactical Offensive Radio Operations (TORO), Dismounted Crew (CC-0533) and several programs with offensive Cyber capabilities.

PM Terrestrial Sensors will move Automated Integrated Survey Instrument (AISI), Global Positioning System-Survey (GPS-S), Tactical Security System (TSS) and Vehicle Optics Sensors System (VOSS) to ACAT IV.

PM DoD Biometrics’ best known system, Biometrics Automated Toolset – Army, or BAT-A, will also be moved to ACAT IV.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]