The Department of the Navy announced today the 14 Navy projects selected for negotiation under the Commercial Operations and Support Savings Initiative (COSSI) of the Dual Use Applications Program (DUAP). COSSI emphasizes using commercial technology and commercial-like business approaches to reduce the operations and support (O&S) costs of existing military systems. The 14 projects announced were chosen for their potential to reduce O&S costs of Navy systems by inserting commercial technology into them. Today's selections could receive approximately $43 million in DUAP funding (subject to the continued availability of the funds) during stage one of the projects; industry participants will add to this total through cost-sharing.

During stage one of the projects non-recurring engineering and qualification testing needed to prepare the commercial technology for military insertion will be performed. This stage will typically last one to two years. At that point in each project, based on the results of stage one, the Navy will decide whether to proceed to stage two - - actually buying the items for military insertion using Navy funds. The Navy hopes to conduct each stage of the project under the commercially friendly provisions of other transactions for prototypes and the commercial items section of the Federal Acquisition Regulations.

An example of this initiative is Alliant Techsystems/Valence Technology's proposal to replace current zinc-silver oxide batteries in three Navy underwater vehicle applications (MK-30 target, MK-8 Seal Delivery Vehicle and the Advanced Seal Delivery System) with commercial lithium ion polymer batteries. These systems procure $5M plus of batteries per year because of finite recharge cycles and wet life requiring their replacement every 12 to 18 months. Lithium ion batteries will provide over 10 times the cycle life of the silver-zinc.

A list and description of each Navy COSSI project is attached.

Acoustic Emission and Ultrasonic Testing for Periodic Inspection of Pneumatic Pressure Vessels -- Physical Acoustics Corp. This project will replace the current methods for recertifying gas flask/containers on-board Navy ships by using commercially standard Acoustics Emission and Ultrasonic Testing. The ability to detect, locate, and size flaws on board saves the high cost of removal for testing.

Lithium Ion Polymer Battery -- Alliant TechSystems and Valence Technology This project will replace Zinc-Silver oxide batteries in three Navy underwater vehicles (the MK-30 target, MK-8 Seal Delivery Vehicle, and the ASDS) with commercial Lithium Ion Polymer batteries.

Portable Engine Test Cell Capability for H-53 Series Helicopters -- Howell Instruments Inc. This project will adapt the commercially available engine test equipment item, the JETCAL 2000, for use on the H-46 & H-53 helicopters. This will greatly reduce costly engine removals as well as allow for maintenance actions on site.

USMC/SIGINT/EW Systems Interoperability -- California Microwave Inc. This project will use a commercial communications gateway to increase the interoperability of four current USMC systems. The upgraded PC hardware and associated software will bring the USMC Common Electronic Warfare and Intelligence Gateway up to commercial X.400 & X.500 standards.

Install and Support an Integrated Aircraft Usage and Condition Monitoring System in the H-60s and H-53 Helicopters -- BF Goodrich Aerospace Integrated Systems This project will install a commercially available on-board Integrated Mechanical Diagnostics system aboard the H-60 and H-53 helicopters.

Tivoli Integrated Systems Management Tools -- Tivoli Systems Inc. This project will use web-based technologies for configuration management of 4,155 JMCIS workstations distributed globally. This adaptation of commercially used software will allow for more efficient distribution, installation and control of critical command and control programs throughout the fleet.

Reconfigurable Logic Engine for Legacy Systems (AN/SPS-67) Radar -- VisiCom Laboratories This project is to use computer-aided reverse engineering tools to design commercially based replacements for the SEM-A cards in the AN/SPS-67 shipboard radar. Seventy unique designs will be reduced to one, and subsequently the 300 card system will be reduced to seven VME cards.

Military Qualification of a High-Reliability Light Weight 24V/30Ah Aircraft Battery -- Electrosource Inc. and Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center The proposal qualifies a commercially available, high- reliability, light-weight 24V/30Ah battery for military aircraft starting operations. The battery, known as the HORIZON , uses unique designs and processes that result in a greater than 4X advantage in starting life and 25 percent less weight than typical military aircraft batteries.

Laser Cladding Applications in the Operation and Support of Land Based Vehicles -- Caterpillar Inc. and Applied Research Lab, PA State University This proposal will modify Caterpillar Corporation's commercially successful laser beam cladding technique for refurbishing components to qualify for use on Marine Corps (MC) land-based vehicles.

COTS Insertion Program for the AN/BQR-22A Sonar Receiving Set -- Signal Processing Systems This project will upgrade the AN/BQR-22A Sonar Receiver Set by replacing the current custom hardware and software in fleet submarines with COTS hardware and interfaces and open architecture software.

FltCast -- Texas Instruments Inc. and ComGlobal Systems Inc. This project will modify commercially available Point Cast internet software to permit the tailoring of data and information transmission by fleet customers.

E-2C/C-2A Inspection Kit -- NEWCO Inc. This project includes the development, testing and fielding of a COTS Blade Inspection Kit (BIK), using infrared and digital imagery technology, for assessing the integrity of E-2C/C-2A propellers during a routine maintenance schedule.

Commercially Based Processing for F/A-18 C/D -- McDonnell Douglas Aerospace; Honeywell Inc., and Computing Devices International This project will replace the current assembly-language based software in the F/A18 C/D mission computer with software written in a commercially based, object-oriented, higher order language that is easier to maintain.

Advanced Digital/Logistic Integrated Data Capture and Analysis -- Norfolk Naval Shipyard; Computing Devices International; Spatial Integrated Systems Inc. and Cyra Technologies Inc. This project will integrate commercially available Laser-radar (Lidar) scanning, bar coding and information management technologies into an automated space configuration management system.