- Hey, everybody, good morning.
Paul Pardue, Army Contracting Command.
This morning, I will walk you through
what ACC is doing for Army readiness,
and Army modernization.
I'll give you a quick overview of the command.
Some of the aggressive things we're trying to do
for readiness and modernization.
I have five of my six center directors in the front row,
so raise your hand, ACC Warren, Rock Island,
New Jersey, Redstone, and APG.
I'm only missing Orlando,
so if you see Joe June, to throw him to the front.
So they'll be available after this,
or if there's a question I can't answer,
they'll jump on that one.
They may be having technical difficulties,
but if you can go to the next slide, the agenda.
Think I hit those.
And then next slide to the ACC Mission,
which is largely delivering readiness
through Army contracts around the globe,
for Army land operations and joint force requirements.
Our vision is to sustain Army readiness
and support modernization.
And we do that three different ways, right?
ACC's composed of six centers
that largely do the weapons' system contracting.
Lot of you will be interested in that discussion.
And we also have a mission installation command,
that does the installation commands,
and then we have eight contracting brigades,
arrayed around the globe,
that do a lot of the mission support forward.
So, with that, next slide.
Here's a little bit of a lay-down of where we're located.
Like I said, we're a global organization.
The Army Contracting Command,
at the end of this fiscal year,
did $69 billion, which $69 billion,
out of the just short of $95 billion across the Army,
so we're the big player.
And then when you look in the lower left,
73% of what we do is for the Army,
and then there is some Federal spend,
and some D.O.D. spend for other services
that we may be the lead for that effort.
And then, look at, look over at the number of contracts.
We did 151,000 contracts last year.
The number one question I get asked,
is how long does it take to put a contract in place?
You know, procurement acquisition lead time
is a topic of discussion.
That's part of the reform discussion that we have.
I will tell you the answer there is on average,
across those 151,000, the number is about 170 days, right?
But then, if I break that down by bits and pieces,
I can show you stuff that we do in hours,
and I can show you stuff that takes,
you know a weapons' system, that takes a lot longer,
depending on the complexity.
Next slide please.
So, moving forward.
We have this thing General Perna has given us
called Shape the Fight.
We are looking to reform
how some of our centers are structured,
how's my center structured,
so that we can get after Army modernization and readiness.
We can be more proactive.
For those of you that might have been dealing
with my centers over the past year,
you've probably found that they have a lot
of draft RFPs that go out.
We have a lot of RFIs that we deal with.
They are directly engaged with many of you
to try to figure out what is actually
within the realm of the possible,
as we go forward on Army modernization.
I'll talk to you a little bit more on that
when we get to the OTAs.
And then, increasing organizational efficiencies.
One of the things I've been spending time here
at the, at AUSA is on definitization of contract efforts
across ACC's operations, and with specific contractors.
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So, on reform, the Army has contracts
that have money sitting on them across multiple years.
We are now chasing those dollars down,
to return them back to the Army.
If you listen to anything
that the Secretary of the Army said
in the past two days, you know,
we've gotta make sure we're using
every nickel appropriately.
At the end of this past FY '18,
we were running through all the unliquidated obligations
that we could get, so we could return it back,
so FY '18 dollars could be more efficiently used,
and we returned $125 million back to the Army.
But we still have multiple years to do that across.
One of the things I have asked my organization to do,
is shift to a contract admin,
and a consistent contract admin,
to get after those type of things.
One of the other things we've been asked,
and it started with Mr. Kelly, the DUSA,
is data analytics.
We did not have a data analytics cell.
General Perna has spent a lot of time asking us
how we see ourselves.
Where are the contracts spends?
Can we get after more strategic sources
to be more efficient across the Army?
So for those of you that may know anything
about LOGCAP, EAGLE, some of those contracts,
those are strategic sources,
we're trying to use those more,
so that you have a consistent contract
that you can get to.
There is any number of other levels of analysis
that we're doing across installations,
to look at what you have going on at one installation
and then another, and are the services the same,
and does it lend itself to a strategic source
for the United States Army?
And then, category management,
which is an effort within the department
to get after your portfolio, it's spend,
and trying to better manage it across services.
And so we're working through that as well.
Next slide.
Quick picture slide, nothing too exciting here,
other than to say, it's gonna be a balance going forward
on modernization and readiness of FAR based and OTAs.
OTAs have been the flavor of the month
for the better part of a year,
or, okay, flavor of the year.
And I'm gonna show you the contract spend right,
I think it's the next, go to the next slide.
Okay, it's the one after this.
So, key tenets of modernization,
for those of you that have been listening
to the Secretary and the Chief, you know,
the strategic priorities, they're not changing.
The number one things we spend our time talking about
is readiness and modernization, and how any effort I do
within the ACC is tied directly to that.
But that takes an engagement with industry.
When we come up with next generation ground combat vehicle,
what is that?
What are those requirements gonna be?
Dan Gallagher in ACC Warren just started a second round
of industry engagement to get after,
hey, is it a bright idea, or is it something
within the realm of the possible,
that can eventually make it into a requirement
for a prototyping OTA?
So that level of engagement's gonna help us going forward.
Let me talk a little bit about how we're laid down
to support futures command.
There was a time where we thought, potentially
parts and pieces would be directly given to Army Futures,
I think that's still a possibility at some point,
but right now, the going in way we're aligned is,
we have a headquarters cell right now
that's largely about five people,
four or five people, they will be down in Austin.
Right now, they're doing TDYs back and forth.
And then for every CFT, I have two,
what I would call all star baseball players
aligned to every CFT.
Now, they come out of my centers.
They do TDYs back and forth as needed,
and they're largely working with the center that is the,
what I like to tell them is, hey, the center
is the way the contract and the OTL get led.
That's where the legal and policy staff,
and all that, is there.
But those two people that are aligned to the CFTs,
they're intended to help with requirements generation
and take the vision of the CFT
and translate it into something
that the centers can get on contract.
The other thing about the CFTs, is they're largely aligned,
you know ground combat system is aligned with Tacom Warren,
anything that's aviation is going to John Mays in RSA,
and so, in my view, if you think about how ACC's laid out,
the Army Futures Command has two people on those CFTs,
but they can get themselves into a larger command,
that has capabilities across APG,
that has a lot of communications and IT type stuff,
so if you have that on a helicopter,
and it's another part of the system,
they have some expertise to share,
and work those equities.
So that's how we're arrayed right now.
We'll see how it works.
The effort I've given, or the guidance I've been given
from General Perna is they are priority one.
It is a no fail mission, and so everybody I put
against that effort is an A-Team player.
Next slide.
So I had my folks run the numbers.
Normally I don't spend a lot of time talking
dollars in actions,
but the point of this chart was,
I wanted to know, from last year,
when we announced Army Futures,
where were we, and what was the Army doing with OTAs
to where we are today.
And what you see is, you know, last year,
the Army was still the big player in it,
but if you get to today,
2.9 million, we've effectively, or 2.9 billion,
we've effectively added another billion dollars
in the past year.
But here's what I would tell you about OTAs,
and it's my responsibility
as the Army Contracting Commander
to make sure that what authorities we've been given
with OTAs stay within those authorities.
While it's a very quick way to prototype,
it's a very quick way to bring consortia,
and non-standard players to the game,
we can't get outside of those authorities,
'cause Congress is watching us.
You know, hey, it's great, 2.9 billion,
you added another billion in a year,
you're doing a great job,
but if we get outside of the box on this,
that tool will be taken away,
and so, I spend a lot of time talking to my team,
I talked to General Ostrowski this morning
about this, and OTA is good,
and we still have some learning to do.
One of the questions I was asked yesterday was,
hey, when you got to prototyping,
at what point, how's your decision making gonna be
as you go to production to FAR-based or continue on
with the OTA, and a very good question,
which I didn't have a great answer for,
because we haven't quite got there
on some of these larger systems.
Next slide.
Look, every OTA's not the, they're not a cookie cutter.
They come with, each an every one is a little bit unique.
They do take time to negotiate,
especially with non-standard
Department of Defense contractors,
and that's actually probably true of FAR-based too,
because it's new.
You're dealing with the government,
we have our processes, we have our ways of doing business,
and that is not exactly translate
to the regular business community.
Draft OTAs, I think this has been one of the things
that has worked out the best.
If you look at the FARA acquisition
that was just announced last Friday,
that draft OTA went out several times,
and it was industry that made comment on that.
And so, when ground combat vehicle,
or any other of these Army Futures efforts go out,
it's really important for you all to give us feedback,
'cause otherwise, that solicitation may go out,
and it's not something that's executable.
And so, the feedback on these drafts
are critically important to how we're going forward,
and, I think, actually make the long-term effort
a lot more successful.
And then I think I hit on the piece
with consortia, non-standard.
And with that, I'm at questions.
Yes, sir.
- [Audience Member] You mentioned going
outside of your lanes, outside of your authorities,
could we get some examples of what that might look like?
- So, not Paul, I'm gonna pick on you.
We solicited, or we did an OTA, right?
(microphone feedback)
Sorry.
What we didn't put into the original solicitation,
was that we wanted to take it to production.
And then when it went through it's life cycle,
and we down selected and what have you,
we then wanted to take it to production,
and it was protested.
Now, originally we all thought OTAs are not protestable,
except this one was effectively protested,
because in the original, up-front solicitation of that OTA,
we hadn't talked anything about protesting,
and so, we were just rolling along,
and so, they said, hey, that's not fair, right?
That you never said you were gonna do that.
And so, now the issue, the thing that I see strategically
with OTAs is, you have to know exactly where
you're gonna go up front,
or at least build the capacity within it,
so that when you get downstream,
hey, it's gonna be FAR-based, or hey, maybe not,
don't get too far outside of it.
You guys have any other examples potentially
on that question?
Okay.
Yes, ma'am.
- [Female Audience Member] Can you speak a little bit
to options that PMs may have if they want to get
some time of performance data
that has been removed from the OTA
due to FAR and de-FAR, and they want to try something
more innovative and creative,
that doesn't have to fall within the mill standards.
- Little bit closer, I can't,
- [Female Audience Member] Okay. Can you speak a little bit
about PM, capabilities that PMs may have,
if they want to use an OTA, but the de-FAR and FAR
have been removed from the OTA,
but they want to get performance data,
but they don't want to fall into mill standards,
they want to do something more creative or innovative
with industry, and use, maybe, data that they have.
- You guys wanna take a stab at that one?
Dan?
Yeah, I can't, I still can't really
hear the question up here.
I'll wave you up, it'll be easier.
- Can you speak to options that a program manager,
a government program manager may have,
if they want to use an OTA, but de-FAR and FAR
have been removed from that agreement,
but they want to get performance data from a contractor,
but they don't want to be subject to mill standards,
they want to do something more creative or innovative,
maybe use more,
- And not give up the data?
- Right.
- All right, you guys, Paul?
- I think what you need to see,
whoever you're contracting with through that OTA,
how they have the data available,
and so work that out in the terms of the contract
when you award it, via some mill standard,
I would go to what the commercial practice is,
what the standard practice is in the industry,
see if that works, versus laying
on some mill standard, right?
I hope that helps.
- Does that answer your question?
- [Female Audience Member] I think so.
Just basically having an opportunity (mumbles).
- Yeah, and I'll hang after.
Oh, boy.
I know him, I can say that.
- (mumbles), General.
Just a question about how do you,
what's your technique to go ahead
and breakdown a silo approach,
to make sure that they entire team is talking.
For example, coms and networking applies
to both the rotary wing platforms
as well as the next generation combat vehicle,
they're gonna be critically important,
but how do you make sure that the whole team is talking,
and that the contracts are there to go ahead
and cross-support those?
- Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's the,
Phil, I think that's the beauty of Army Futures, right?
I mean, what they're trying to do is
build systems that are interoperable, right?
What we don't want to do is,
I'm gonna build a ground combat vehicle
that can't talk to the future arm reconnaissance vehicle,
so what are those systems.
The real question of Army Futures, and the PEO structure is,
how does that all get synced?
And that's, I think, part of what of what Dr. Jetty,
General Murray, and General Perna are all working through.
And then how do you make sure that there's synchronicity
across all the systems,
so they don't become divergent, right?
Yes, sir.
- I'm curious how you integrate friends and partners,
from around the globe, into this process,
both to take advantage of the capabilities
that they bring, but also to ensure the integration process.
So, we're very good at being able to talk,
well, fairly good about being able
to talk amongst ourselves, but then when we want our allies
to execute things, we have problems integrating them
into our war fighting model.
So, we have that challenge all the time,
and we need to try to figure out better ways
to force that integration.
- Yeah, I can't agree with you more.
I mean, in theory, that's what USASAC does,
but, and I think we're better with some allies
that we are others.
Like, with the UK, I'm sure we're pretty tight,
but what if you're gonna roll in,
I'll just say the South Koreans,
just 'cause I don't know, but I mean,
how far along are we in integrating anything
that they may want to have in similar system, right?
- It's a big problem.
- Yeah, it is a big problem.
But it's not unknown, right?
I think we do recognize that,
and what we're doing in Korea,
that pops up from time to time,
how are we communicating.
How are we communicating air defense,
how are we communicating,
- (mumbles) integration of systems (mumbles)
- Yeah, right, yeah, it's not just coms.
- (mumbles)
- Right.
I was gonna say, I'm here all week.
- [Cami] Sir, Cami Stenson, APNTCFT Logistician.
You were just talking about transitioning from the OTAs
to different types of funding.
Is there some plan, different types of contracts.
- [General Perdue] Right.
- [Cami] Is there some plan for lessons learned,
that's gonna come out in the near future,
for the CFTs, thank you.
- Yeah, so, one of the things we don't have yet,
to answer your question on the collecting
of lessons learned, the answer is yes.
With my contract opps cell,
that's one of the things they do.
One of the other efforts that we're trying to get after
is I need some kind of formal education program for this,
'cause right now, the pros are largely in New Jersey,
and what I've had them do, is propagate out, and advise
across my command, until I can get
a defense acquisition university,
or some kind of effort, going,
and actually use some of his talent
to help get the initial thing going.
I've already started those conversations, yeah.
So there doesn't become a one time deal,
like, hey, we're gonna do OTA for two years,
and then boom, it's gone, and the budget gets,
you know, yeah.
This is gonna be a long-term effort.
- [Nancy] Sir, Nancy Lyons, there's a lot of discussion
about modernization, but we seem to lose visability
of a sustainment.
Is that gonna be factored in, when we work with AFC
from a contracting standpoint?
- Yeah, I think that's a discussion between,
and we haven't seen this yet, right?
We're only in the first year.
How does AFC take a system,
we'll take next generation ground combat vehicle,
and then, how does it go
into the PEO structure for sustainment?
That's one of the, that's one of the discussions, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Part of me says AFC should remain in the prototyping,
and getting after the science and technology
to build systems, but then once that system is awarded,
it goes over to sustainment over in the PEO structure.
I think that's the going in idea,
but just like anything new that you try,
we may find out that there's some synergies between the two,
and some things that we gotta do to, you know,
logically think through multiple commands
that you're gonna have to hand off,
to sustain long term.
I know, I don't think it's fully lined up,
exactly, right now.
Craig, no questions?
Good to see friends and family.
All right, like I said, I'll hang around
for a little bit.
I'm here through tomorrow, if you need to talk to me,
or one of my center directors will hang
over here to the side and answer any questions,
or if we didn't clarify anything,
come see me.
Thank you.
(applause)