Air Force | The Contracting Education Academy

February 10, 2021 By cs

DoD is centralizing space acquisition, but still has bugs to work out

The Air Force is reorganizing its space acquisition office to better support the Space Force and other new space entities, but there are still questions surrounding exactly how the Pentagon will consolidate its space procurement.

Earlier this month the Air Force revamped its space acquisition shop by splitting it into three directorates.

“We have gone from an organization that was largely focused on policy and providing advice and counsel to the Air Force secretary to one that is now focused on, or will be focused on, acquisition, architecture, and then policy and integration,” Shawn Barnes, who is performing the duties of Air Force assistant secretary for space acquisition and integration, told reporters last week.

The three directorates are each run by a colonel and will focus on the three areas Barnes mentioned: acquisition, architecture, and policy and integration.

“Underlying those three key directorates,” Barnes said. “I have a number of subject matter experts that effectively work for all three of those directorates. They’re set up into different teams based on mission areas. We have a mission area related to precision navigation, timing and communications. We have a team that is focused on space control, a team that is focused on launch in space logistics, and then a team that’s focused on space control.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/air-force/2021/01/dod-is-centralizing-space-acquisition-but-still-has-bugs-to-work-out/

December 17, 2020 By cs

Air Force’s next hack of the federal procurement system: One-year funding

Air Force Maj. Gen. Cameron Holt knows a little something about the complexity of federal contracting.

The deputy assistant secretary for contracting, in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, started his career as a contracts manager. He served as the procuring contracting officer for the F-22 fighter and held an assortment of executive positions during his 19-year career in the service.

So when he gave the House and Senate armed services committees a list of regulations that need to be revoked, removed or replaced a few years ago, he knows what he’s talking about.

“I told them that you’ve written so many laws that we need to implement that our contracting officers in the trenches can’t even follow them all because they actually start to conflict with each other,” Holt said at the annual Government Contract Management Symposium sponsored by the National Contract Management Association. “That environment is not really paying attention to the opportunities that, for instance, the 809 panel gave to them to update the system. I think they are really focused on a different agenda right now. I hope they will join us in really streamlining, especially the defense contracting environment, but really the federal contracting environment.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/category/reporters-notebook/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/

November 3, 2020 By cs

Pentagon still hammering out acquisition strategies needed to enable DevSecOps, officials say

The Defense Department needs to educate its workforce on what DevSecOps means for them, the Pentagon’s Katie Arrington says.

The Defense Department won’t see the return on investment DevSecOps systems development practices can provide without cultural and procedural shifts, according to DOD officials.

Katie Arrington, chief information security officer for DoD’s acquisition office, said DoD has more work to do on changing workforce culture within the Pentagon around DevSecOps. DevSecOps is not just the latest in a long line of buzzwords — from waterfall to agile to DevOps — but a priority, according to Arrington.

“You think about long-term sustainability, if we don’t start to really emphasize DevSecOps as we go forward and build on the good work that has been done, we’ll never see the actual return on investment in the life cycle that we need,” Arrington said at a webinar hosted by AFCEA International’s SIGNAL Magazine recently.

Arrington added the department needs to educate the workforce around what DevSecOps means for them. She wants the workforce to understand that DevSecOps is not something that will replace jobs, but enhance the work they are currently doing.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2020/10/pentagon-still-hammering-out-acquisition-strategies-needed-enable-devsecops-officials-say/169482/

September 16, 2020 By cs

Pentagon, Defense contractors are out of step on tech innovation, GAO finds

The Pentagon wanted to fund ambitious research into future tech breakthroughs but contractors spend most of their money on safer bets, GAO has found.

Two years after the Pentagon set out to spend billions on 10 breakthrough research and engineering efforts, defense contractors instead are putting most of their money in less ambitious research projects.

The development gap between the military and its suppliers troubled investigators at the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, who determined in a report released last Thursday that the Defense Department isn’t keeping good watch over those private efforts and doesn’t know how much of it would fit into the military’s tech goals.

The Pentagon’s undersecretary for research and engineering in 2018 laid out several big idea research areas that would be most relevant to maintaining an edge on China or Russia. Many are in the very early stages of maturation; the biggest breakthroughs are expected in the second half of the coming decade.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/09/pentagon-defense-contractors-are-out-step-tech-innovation-gao-finds/168237/

April 13, 2020 By cs

Pentagon seeks innovative commercial tech to address COVID-19 pandemic

The U.S. Air Force — on behalf of the Defense Department — is looking outside the military for innovative commercial technology, processes, methods and research that could address the national crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

On April 6, the Air Force Acquisition COVID-19 Task Force issued a solicitation for new technologies to address seven mission areas:

combating the COVID-19 spread;
welfare of citizens;
readiness;
logistics;
industrial base impacts;
medical; and
other areas that support the national response to the pandemic.

The Air Force seeks those technologies under the Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Joint Acquisition Task Force, which was launched last month to “synchronize and support the acquisition” of the Defense Department’s response for COVID-19 resources.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2020/04/pentagon-seeks-innovative-commercial-tech-address-covid-19-pandemic/164435/

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech has established a webpage where all contract-related developments related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are summarized. Find the page at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/coronavirus-information-for-contracting-officers-and-contractors/

The Air Force is reorganizing its space acquisition office to better support the Space Force and other new space entities, but there are still questions surrounding exactly how the Pentagon will consolidate its space procurement.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Cameron Holt knows a little something about the complexity of federal contracting.

The Defense Department needs to educate its workforce on what DevSecOps means for them, the Pentagon’s Katie Arrington says.

The Pentagon wanted to fund ambitious research into future tech breakthroughs but contractors spend most of their money on safer bets, GAO has found.

The U.S. Air Force — on behalf of the Defense Department — is looking outside the military for innovative commercial technology, processes, methods and research that could address the national crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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