Q Your offce manages the Joint Technology Exchange [JTEG] group. On what kinds of technologies is that group focused? What results might you expect if the mili- tary Services are able to adopt them? A. My ofce is responsible for sustainment technology in the JTEG. This is one of the forums that we lead to improve the expansion or accelerate the adoption of technology across the department. The other program that we manage is the rapid sustainment improvement program, where we have been leading. That’s really a multi-year efort, sort of organized thematically by year in terms of what we are focusing on. That has been funded to some degree through the department. And I highlight this as opposed to really focusing on the JTEG because we have money behind it and are able to guide some Service investments to accel- erate adoption of available commercial technology that could improve readiness, help the Services with funding, and facilitate transition of that technology into the Ser- vices. Probably the best example of that is our focus on Condition Based Maintenance Plus [CBM+] capabilities. Each of the Services has outlined investments relative to CBM+, and we’re guiding that efort writ large and those investments are nearing execution. As they conclude, we’ll ensure or do the best we can to efectively transition tech- nologies that have proven worthwhile. Q Speaking of CBM+, on the updated Condition Based Maintenance+ Guidebook , what CBM+ initiatives is your offce managing and what is your perspective on how im- plementation is proceeding across the different Services? This is meant to help programs design systems and im- plement technologies enabling the Warfghter to provide maintenance upon evidence of need perhaps even before there is a break. A. We have recently re-energized our focus on CBM+. And I know that there are good things going on within each of the Services. What we don’t have as good a feel for right now is what all of those, what the totality, what that universe looks like across the Services. So, we now are conducting an assessment across the department of what specifc CBM+ initiatives are ongoing and what progress has been made in the department over the last couple of years. So that’s Part 1. As I mentioned earlier, we are focused on condition-based maintenance, so we’ve got 10 or 12 dif- ferent projects that the Services are executing that will be complementary to the things
side of that coin is predictive maintenance, so we must understand not only when we need to do maintenance and how can we anticipate that requirement but also keep things in service and not take them ofine when we don’t have to do the maintenance. And think diferently about our technical manuals’ call for changing the oil every six months regardless of whether an oil change is needed. I think the combination of both of those facet is sort of two sides of a coin—the CBM+ and predictive main- tenance. Again, a lot of good work is going on, and we’re going to continue to advance that because I think we will see that we can certainly reach some positive readiness gains out of accelerating the adoption of both of those. And frankly these have been around for a long time. And again, the Services are doing good things. So, there’s nothing new here, but I think you know what could be new is the application of, as you mentioned, ar- tifcial intelligence to do analytics in a diferent way. We have built at this point a very solid DoD data foundation, and so predictive maintenance is an area where I think the application of AI will enable us to do better analytics to improve maintenance. Q On the additive manufacturing and the initial capa- bilities document [ICD] that I believe your offce de- veloped, would you discuss that and your assessment of progress in advancing the depth and scope of additive or advanced manufacturing to improve Warfghter readiness? A. The ICD establishes advanced manufacturing as a required DoD capability. That validates and legitimizes investments across the Services into the capability; it is something they now must invest in as opposed to some- thing that maybe they don’t. So, program managers can walk around with the document that says, hey, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staf determined that this is a required capability—so it helps program managers make those investments. Now advanced manufacturing, I think, is well institu- tionalized in the DoD. Does that mean we’re perfect in ex- ecution? Absolutely not. And I think that there are pockets of excellence that have more fully embraced the benefts of advanced manufacturing than others. Yes, I would say it is by and large institutionalized, a permanent part of the DoD fabric. But certainly, there is more work to be done. And I think that from a policy perspective, there are a couple of things that we’re thinking about to help fur- ther institutionalize that technology. These include, frst, a policy to accept the certifcation of a part by one Service when that certifcation was completed by another Service. For example, if the Army certifes that a part Form, Fit, and Function for a Humvee, the Marine Corps doesn’t now need to redo that. So, we should have
that they already have going on because, at the end of the day, condition-based
maintenance is about readiness. The fip
policy that directs reciprocity of that certifcation so that we don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel. Now I understand that there will
10 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION | September-October 2025
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