CATEGORY: INNOVATION IN OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
Overcoming Acquisition Obstacles for the Rapid Transition of a New
Warfighting Capability by DEAN R. EVANS, PH.D., U.S. AIR FORCE
In less than 24 months, I executed a fast-paced operational experimentation and prototyping campaign evolving from a paper-only concept to a successful live-fire demonstration of a system of systems, while remaining ahead of schedule and on budget. This campaign designed, built, and flight-tested a prototype of an aircraft-agnostic palletized weapon system ca- pable of employing weapons/effects en masse from cargo aircraft using existing standard airdrop equipment and procedures—without aircraft modifications. This resulted in an entirely new warfighting concept addressing a vital capability gap— i.e., there was a need for increased fire capacity to blunt an adversary’s surge using nontraditional solutions. The USAF did not have enough pylons on planes to employ mass in a conventional fashion. In addition, this campaign successfully demonstrated an unconventional employment of a legacy long-range cruise missile (in a way for which it was never designed, nose down from near rest). To establish an effective government-industry partnership, I built a community of subject matter experts (SME) and military operators; executed an aggressive but well-thought-out experimentation campaign and embraced an accelerating mindset. The campaign was executed with speed and discipline—embracing a “test often/learn-fast” culture dedicated to experimenting frequently and taking calculated risks. This campaign addressed critical capability gaps and demonstrated transformative capabilities, which helped shape future requirements (i.e., Rapid Fielding Requirement Document) and significantly reduced the transition timeline to a Program of Record (PoR). This campaign demonstrated innovative ways to overcome acquisition timeline obstacles for rapid fielding of “game changing” technologies and has provided lessons-learned for impactful ways of “doing business differently.” Simpli- fying the complexity of the effort, I took an analytical approach to create a prototype and prove concept feasibility within a 24-month period. This included: • Dividing the program into small, more manageable tasks, • Integrating lessons learned into subsequent tasks, • Accepting different levels of risk for different phases, and • Establishing a phased schedule allowing the team to work tasks in parallel, not series. A critical factor was the ability to execute the effort before the acquisition timeline formally began, this prevented long delays typically experienced when addressing capability needs. Under normal conditions, there is required input into the Program Objective Memorandum cycle, followed by a two-year wait for funding/work to begin—this is a major limitation for Senior Leaders to rapidly address critical capability gaps. Organizationally, we had funding for operational experimentation and prototyping that allowed Senior Leaders (i.e., A5/7, A3, Secretary of the Air Force) to direct us to answer questions related to concept feasibility, operational util- ity, and competitive advantage. Year-of-execution funding provided a means to augment the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) and Program Objective Memorandum (POM) cycles, allowing senior leaders to immediately pivot to address the most critical and immediate demands across the Department of the Air Force. Within 24 months, the effort had developed from a concept on the back of a napkin to a system of systems validated in a live-fire flight test. Under a typical acquisition process, this effort would not have even started at the time we were completing the live-fire test. By the time the Air Force POM’ed for this capability, it was already five years ahead of the typical acquisition sched- ule. Furthermore, during this period, we matured the system to an operational prototype resulting in the Air Force Acquisition Office (SAF/AQ) determination of a Rapid Fielding Requirement—this all happened before the POM cycle even began. I was tasked with doing something fast (i.e., 24 months was a requirement), and since the acquisition process is not fast, one of my main goals was to establish an “out-of-the-box” process to move quickly. I started by establishing an
May-June 2025 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION
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