USN's OSA strategy to help foster innovation, lower ownership costs

The US Navy (USN) has published its Open Systems Architecture (OSA) strategy, a four-page document to guide acquisition towards quicker innovation, reduced cycle times, and lower total ownership costs.
The strategy, published in early January 2013, is the culmination of a year's worth of work to pull together a four-year plan with concrete actions and is aligned with the Chief of Naval Operations' (CNO) emphasis on pursuing the concept of "payloads over platforms".
"If we want to get to reusable enterprise components where you have things that can be put across multiple platform types, then there are some things we have to change about the way we have to build them and the way we invest in them," Nickolas Guertin, director for transformation in the office of the deputy assistant secretary of the navy for research, development, test, and evaluation told IHS Jane's .
"My personal belief is we are not going to get big change in how much we spend on our products until we start working on commonality, especially looking at technical frameworks that can be applied across multiple domains, because that is where the action is," he said.
Guertin, who has recently visited several defence companies to brief the new strategy, said the contractors recognise that if they do not prepare themselves to head down this path they will miss out on competitive opportunities. "The train has started to move. Industry is positioning itself to respond."
Under Phase 1 of the new OSA strategy, the acquisition workforce will examine if programme managers are using open architecture (OA) as they execute programmes. "That's the first year's activity: intra-programme alignment," Guertin said.
Additionally, compared with other OA efforts in the past, the navy is actually going to look across programmes and compare them side-by-side, he added. "In this first year we are just investigating those [programmes] and working internally on identifying the systems engineering and the business models associated with taking those [programmes] and moving into this enterprise portfolio management," Guertin said.
The initial efforts that will be examined are the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services systems, the Future Airborne Capability Environment and how it applies to programmes like the P-8, the Submarine Warfare Federated Tactical Systems and how the surface navy is moving towards an objective architecture in the Aegis combat system and the Ship Self-Defence System, Guertin said. "Those are the four exemplars we are starting with. They are by no means where we are going to end up, but that is the field we are beginning with."
In parallel to Phase 1, the USN will examine a few technical frameworks to help achieve component reuse across multiple platforms, Guertin noted. "That has proven to work well in industry."
The navy has been briefed by defence contractors as well as private companies on component reuse, he added. "They are looking at the infrastructure of their designs that will allow them to reuse things purposefully as a part of managing an enterprise portfolio."
While Phase 1 will deal with aligning programmes to execute the strategy, Phase 2 will work towards consolidating technical frameworks across prorgammes and eliminating redundant stovepipes. Phase 3 sees the implementation of the enterprise architecture of modular development and maximum reuse.
The final piece of the strategy deals with contracting. The navy is working to add more specificity in crafting contract language for things like an integrator, component developer, or a platform, Guertin noted.
A key piece of the new strategy is a planned business 'wargame' to investigate, test, and validate alternative business models, Guertin said. The crowd-sourcing online 'wargame' will give industry another opportunity for industry to provide their ideas and feedback. "We will take that in and make decisions based on the best information we have available including input from industry," he added.

Copyright © IHS Global Limited, 2013

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