WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy and the Defense Department used the fiscal 2024 budget request to double down on asymmetric benefits over rivals like Russia and China.
For the Navy, that took the shape of missiles, submarines and unmanned systems.
More recently, nevertheless, Bill LaPlante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, has said developing and prototyping these high-end systems is essential, but not the tip game.
Research and development “without procurement, production, is interesting — but doesn’t really matter,” he said in September on the Air and Space Forces Association’s annual conference, leaving the audience with the message: “production, production, production.”
Two weeks later, he told one other audience, “production is what matters, and every part else follows from that.”
Jay Stefany, the acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, sat down with Defense News to debate what this concentrate on production looks like for the Navy, what the service’s contracting arm is as much as, and more.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
What are your top priorities for fiscal 2024?
Production in quite a lot of places: actually where we want to expand our production capability to fulfill demand, like within the submarine world, or in a few of our munitions programs where we’ve been at a minimum rate for a long time and now we want to expand to fulfill global needs. So there’s the expansion of production capability.
We’ve got programs which are about to enter production, and we wish to make certain that goes as easily as possible: frigate involves mind, MQ-25 is one other one. I would like to get them began of their production mode, get that good foundation going.
Then there’s getting business technology where it could be used to fulfill a warfighting requirement — which some can, some can’t —but where it could, let’s get right into a case where we’re actually going to go construct a bunch of that and get it on the market quickly. We’ve experimented with it; let’s go from experimentation to really fielding, where it meets a fleet gap or requirement.
What business technology are you considering to be used by the fleet?
Definitely a few of the non-warfighting unmanned capabilities, either undersea or on the ocean, gliders and things that sense the environment and supply back environmental sensing.
But I’m also taking a look at where we will bring additive manufacturing capability or latest technology into ship repair or submarine repair, which is just as vital as getting that technology where it could be used on the warfighting side.
For instance: “Hey, Carnival cruise line, how do you employ technology to repair your cruise ships and get them out and in on time?” Which they do thoroughly, and perhaps we will use a few of that technology in our repair world.
How do issues like inflation and labor affect the broader issue of production?
The main target could be: Is the workforce there? Do we’ve got the fabric there to really sustain production? Do we’ve got a sustained capability coming in from the suppliers? Can we even have the production plans that we’ve proved work?
The workforce today is less experienced due to generational shift, so we really want higher documentation of what they’re doing of their work instructions, whether it’s paper or whether that’s on an iPad.
So those could be the three essential things: Do we’ve got the best documentation for the best workforce matched up? After which, do we’ve got the fabric to proceed doing it, versus starting and waiting?
You furthermore may serve because the F-35 acquisition authority, along with your job as Navy acquisition chief. The fighter jet has faced production delays this 12 months attributable to challenges with the Technology Refresh-3 upgrade. How are you solving the TR-3 problems and getting the production line able to deliver aircraft again?
TR-3 could be the hardware and software suite upgrade that then would allow for a few of the higher-end processing capabilities that may are available in a Block 4 capability package. The TR-3 upgrades were purported to go to the aircraft which are delivering this 12 months. There are a lot of developmental issues going forward; we’re actually now within the flight test area. Lockheed Martin has perhaps 10% to fifteen% of the flight tests done which are required.
The software has all the aptitude in it. But getting a few of those critical metrics to the maturity level in order that we will go do those flight tests has been probably the most recent holdup.
The flight test program we expect to be accomplished — no less than to the purpose where we’re confident within the consequence and might start accepting aircraft again — in March or April on the earliest, perhaps more like June at the most recent. That’s sort of your bracket of after we’re seeking to start accepting aircraft, with either the flight test program complete, or no less than complete enough that we’re confident the last piece of it’ll get done.
Are you expecting a domino effect on aircraft deliveries?
It’s going to probably take six to nine months to catch up. It’s not like: “OK, the software works. Now we’re going to deliver 100 airplanes tomorrow.” We’ve got to work our way through the ultimate delivery process in addition to the brand new ones coming on.
How are you and the F-35 Joint Program Office working through a few of the ongoing F-35 readiness issues as a part of the so-called war on readiness?
Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt has a extremely good approach in what he calls a war on readiness, and he actually created a top 10 list of degraders of all three models. It seems perhaps the highest five of those 10 are the identical in all three models [the “A” model the Air Force flies, the “B” model the Marine Corps flies, and the “C” model the Marine Corps and Navy fly]. So going after those first — canopies, the electro-optical [distributed aperture system] — those come to mind. But he’s targeting those who go across all models first.
After which taking a look at the [operational- and intermediate-level] maintenance which are done, are there things we will have sailors and Marines on the market doing to maintain the engines on the wing longer? Or for whatever it’s that’s degrading: “Hey, if I modified my [operational]-level maintenance, I can get more life.” Within the engines, we saw that was a case where, by doing just a little more out in the sphere, we could significantly reduce the variety of engines that had to return off and return to the depot. It’s that sort of mentality going forward, and the identification of it and really having some money to go work on those things, which the JPO does have on this 12 months’s budget. I expect to see all three mission-capable rates go up noticeably.
What contracting initiatives are in your plate?
One in every of the things that we began with under [former Navy acquisition chief Hondo] Geurts, and we’ve continued, is the concept we would really like to obligate extra money annually with fewer contracting actions with a view to release time for our contracting officers and our program team to really do more bigger-picture, strategic stuff, versus the more transactional stuff.
This past 12 months, $151 billion value of obligations, which is probably the most we’ve ever done in contracting or obligating money. Contracting actions are getting lower and lower, and we’ve hit the bottom variety of contracting actions [since this effort began in FY20] at 199,000. So the concept of more work done with fewer contracting actions — that’s one.
We’re also seeing a trend within the contracting officer world of upper attrition [than other parts of the workforce]. It’s a tough thing to do. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro has encouraged us to have a look at ways to retain that workforce. It’s not a lot recruiting them; it’s that when they get on top of things, it’s just exertions, and we want to make opportunities for them to wish to stay.
We also had a record 12 months for small business contracting. So of the [small business-eligible portion of the total spending in FY23], $20 billion of that was direct to small business prime contractors.
After which there’s more progressive contracting, like other transaction authorities. [In FY22], we were at a couple of billion dollars of other transaction authorities. In FY23, we ended up at $2.7 billion. So a big increase in how much we’re using — and a 59% increase within the actual variety of OTAs.
Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a concentrate on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from 4 geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.