Guided by strategic capabilities, this [transformational S&T] component will include a focused set of research programs called vanguards. Vanguard programs will advance emerging weapon systems and warfighting concepts through prototyping and experimentation…
Vanguard programs aim for significant technical achievements, not only of component technologies but also integrated systems and systems-of-systems that demonstrate the viability of leap-ahead capabilities to warfighters. High risk by design, their goal answers specific questions and informs future decisions by including the direction of future acquisition programs and identifying gaps where more research is still needed.
That as from the Air Force’s April 2019 Science and Technology Strategy. In other words, the Air Force wants to create a set of prototyping programs around 5 strategic areas that are really technology demonstrators without long-term commitments. One unclear point that the Air Force claims these efforts will be primarily BA 6.3 Advanced Technology Development, but will also include some BA 6.4, Advanced System Development & Prototypes.
Usually, we think of BA 6.3 as the last RDT&E funding activity for science & technology (S&T), while 6.4 is destined for programs that have passed Milestone A approval. No where in the Air Force’s document is the 5000-series milestone process referenced (let alone the JCIDS requirements process). Yet programs initiated into 6.4 and beyond are to be managed by the formal acquisition process under the Service Acquisition Executive, not the S&T community which, in the Air Force, doesn’t have an equivalent authority. Here’s more on that:
The Air Force may need an authority, in a role analogous to a large company’s Chief Technology Officer, to oversee the science and technology portfolio and champion the needs of long-range, disruptive new capability development…
A Chief Technology Officer would provide a strong voice within Air Force Headquarters and could prioritize and coordinate science and technology across the Service to support the mission, from early-stage research, through developing new concepts, through experimenting and prototyping, to transitioning mature technologies into the Air Force acquisition system.
The CTO would be the Air Force’s version of USD(R&E). But notice the language. The CTO will have a “strong voice.” It wouldn’t have authority to do much outside the BA 6.3 area, and really assure transition into BA 6.4 and beyond. Right now, USD(R&E) at the OSD level does not have control over programs of record. That’s USD(A&S) job. At the Air Force level, it is difficult to see how the CTO would transition mature technologies without the OK from the Air Force Acquisition Executive, Will Roper. It would introduce one more voice at the table, where all participants have some partial responsibility.
Here’s more on the management of technology transfer between the S&T labs and the program offices, or between the CTO and the SAE:
The new transformational science and technology component will be managed independently from the existing technical discipline-oriented structure. An enterprise-level, cross-organization construct will support the impartiality needed to promote solution-oriented thinking and free competition for resources.
Portfolio managers (or management teams) will chart the course for each strategic capability, manage execution of each vanguard program, and set the competitive environment to identify, select, and manage the research activities…
This sounds a lot like the Army’s cross-functional teams, designed to transfer technologies from Army’s Futures Command to the program offices in 6 strategic areas. It has already received some backlash from Congress, which is wondering who is in charge of the cross-functional teams, and wants to establish greater control of Army Futures Command activities by the Army’s Acquisition Executive.
Ultimately, the Air Force is trying to specify an incremental decision making framework with non-linear program development, but frame that entirely within the linear process we have today — represented by the RDT&E budget activities rather than the milestone process.
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