The Department of War (DoW) transition to a digital acquisition organization is articulated through policy, standards, guide- lines, and strategic plans. A central question emerges: What environment enables effective execution of Integrated Product Team (IPT) technical management in a systems-of-systems, cross-functional context?
An IPT technical management stack that integrates a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) tool with a shared cloud platform to manage engineering work and data across teams may provide a solution. Let us examine the results from multiple offerings of two Warfighting Acquisition University (WarU) work - shops that demonstrate the possibil - ity of routinely implementing digital acquisition methods across various military department program offices for mission engineering and product life-cycle management. These work - shops illustrate how cross-functional engineering teams can utilize MBSE tools such as Cameo and Teamwork Cloud as digital engineering toolsets to collaboratively build, manage, and govern system models. Current acquisition guidance man - dates document-centric technical re - views in accordance with Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 5000.88. However, the Office of the Secretary of War is revising this policy and is expected to include changes that reflect new priorities from digital transformation initiatives. The 2026 Digital Standards Strategy (DSS) ad - vocates for an integrated, digital, model-based approach to enhance the speed and quality of design de - cisions. The DoW System-of-Systems Engineering Guidebook further en - courages capability delivery across interacting systems rather than iso - lated platforms. While orchestration is often as - sociated with future battlefield sce - narios, there is a pressing need for a technical management program development environment that uni - fies requirements, design, analysis, and decision artifacts within a single
framework in DoW program offices and portfolio area offices. New Proof of Concept The WarU workshops, WSE 032 Digital Acquisition Modeling and WSE 006 Digital Acquisition Management, demonstrate that employing a model - ing tool for MBSE—where system re - quirements, architecture, and behav - ior are captured in models integrated with a shared platform—fulfills the unified framework sought in recent DoW policy. In 60 hours of combined instruc - tion, participants complete a full acquisition cycle, from early mis - sion engineering and integration to sustainment planning and source selection testing. The educational assignments produced by the ac - quisition workforce indicate both an increase in participants’ proficiency with digital acquisition practices and the effectiveness of the infrastruc - ture for sharing and interacting with multiple cross-functional data ele - ments within a single IPT knowledge management platform. In WSE 032, each participant acts as a modeler, documenting mission and system design decisions within an architecture typically developed by an organizing, training, and equip - ping command or program office. In WSE 006, participants are orga - nized into IPTs, each assuming a func - tional role and advancing designs into viable manufacturing prototypes. Both workshops use Cameo as the modeling tool and Teamwork Cloud as the main platform for model shar - ing and collaboration, allowing par - ticipants to review and edit models during the process, according to Das - sault Systèmes. Functional motors,
SEPTEMBER –OCTOBER 2026 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE 21
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