8.4 Technology Development in OSD

There is no single priority, principle, capability, or technology that constitutes a successful DOD research and engineering (R&E) program. OSD and the services each have identified but a number of priorities and a portfolio of technologies that support the National Security Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). These R&E strategic plan identifies these higher-valued principles, capabilities, and technologies that are used to guide the investment and management of the DOD and service R&E programs. The result is a proactive R&E program that:

• Generates new scientists and engineers for the national security program;
• Develops new and enhanced operational capability options for our warfighters and strategic decision makers;
• Transitions technologies to acquisition programs and the warfighters;
• Reduces risk for acquisition programs;
• Enhances the affordability of DOD systems and capabilities;
• Enhances sustainment and upgrade of existing weapon systems;
• Forges partnerships with other government agencies, industry, academia, and international allies;
• Shares information across multiple components through proactive collaboration;
• Minimizes the probability of technology surprise against U.S. capability advantage;
• Values technical competency and integrity; and
• Provides maximum value for the taxpayer.

Unfortunately, much of what technology developers produce ends up in the proverbial "Valley of Death." The Valley of Death is a 2-5 year funding gap between the time a capability gets developed and the time that capability gets funded as part of an acquisition program. It is often the result of the lack of a coordinated plan between S&T and acquisition managers and the lack of funding for transition by acquisition managers.

Figure 8-1 Valley of Death

Technology Transition Best Practices includes the following:

• Strong strategic planning to prioritize technology needs and a structured technology development process as a precursor to transition.
• Merge technology development and product development activities prior to product launch.
• Use the following tools to support technology transition activities:
  • Relationship managers,
  • Technology Transition Agreements, and
  • Metrics.

Organizing for successful technology development requires innovative players who understand their roles and responsibilities in the process. The following Government and industry players play important roles and should have high levels of interaction in the technology development and transition process:

• Requirements community,
• S&T community,
• R&D community,
• Acquisition community,
• Financial community,
• T&E community,
• Manufacturing/QA community,
• Software community,
• Sustainment community,
• Security community,
• Industry, and
• Academic community.

Sun Tzu, in the Art of War, noted that "The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat; how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose." Strategic Planning is a key factor in any technology development and transition program. Strategic Plans or Technology Roadmaps provide for investment and management priorities for R&D programs.

The Department's S&T Components each play an important role in the development of a comprehensive DOD R&D Program. The Services provide the stable long-term part of the program, focused on their services' needs and responsibilities. The Service S&T communities constantly look for opportunities to achieve revolutionary breakthroughs while maintaining a range of core competencies and supporting the acquisition and logistics systems that produce and maintain military equipment. Each Service has a vision of future capabilities required to support the core competencies they are uniquely responsible for maintaining. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) focuses its S&T program on high-risk, high-payoff technology development efforts. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) focuses its R&E investment on protecting the nation and our armed forces from present and future WMDs, while the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) develops technology to protect the nation and our armed forces from present and future missile threats. These strategic plans or roadmaps provide a basis for the development of R&D budgets and the allocation of investment dollars once the funding has been authorized and appropriated by Congress.

Figure 8-2 S&T Technology Investment Areas

DOD's R&E program typically focuses on delivering the capabilities outlined in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and other high-level guidance to the warfighters. Each of these capability sets are supported by a large number of enabling technologies that provide S&T focus areas (Figure 8-2). Taken as a whole these capabilities and enabling technologies drive the S&T priorities needed to achieve the desired strategic outcomes. S&T priorities represent the most important S&T investment areas, and are organized into three broad categories depending upon technology maturity:

1. Desired Capabilities to Support Strategic Outcomes,
2. Enabling Technologies, and
3. Basic Research.

These investment areas focus on developing and delivering capabilities (demonstrations and prototypes) that support achievement of the desired strategic outcomes. The capabilities can be aggregated into a few high-level mission areas that include:

• Total Battlespace Awareness;
• Stability Operations, Cultural Awareness, and Force Management;
• Command, Control and Information Management; and
• Net-Centric Operations; Protection; Joint Training; and Tailored Force Application.

Enabling Technology Investment Areas: These investments focus on developing and maturing broad technology areas, leading to mature technologies that are ready to be integrated into demonstrations. Enabling technologies support multiple types of systems and platforms, all capable of providing the above listed capabilities. Technology enablers also capture the S&T response to non-traditional and disruptive technology threats and serve to preclude technology surprise. The specific enabling technologies are:

• Biometrics & Bio-inspired Technologies;
• Nanotechnology;
• Information Technologies;
• Persistent Surveillance Technologies;
• Networks & Communications;
• Software Research;
• Organization, Fusion, & Mining Data;
• Human, Social, Cultural, & Behavioral Modeling;
• Cognitive Enhancements;
• Casualty Care & Human Performance Optimization;
• Advanced Materials;
• Advanced Electronics;
• Energy & Power Technologies;
• Alternative Fuels & Energy Sources;
• Energetic Materials, Rocket Propellants, and Explosives;
• Directed Energy Technologies;
• Hyperspectral Sensors;
• Radar;
• Autonomous Systems Technologies;
• Robotics;
• Manufacturing Technologies;
  • Affordability & Producibility,
  • Agile Fabrication,
• Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction Technologies; and
• Large Data Set Analysis Tools.

The U.S. military's dominant operational capabilities were largely due to the continued development and delivery of superior technology. The goal of R&D is to create, demonstrate, prototype, and deliver capabilities that enables affordable and decisive military superiority to defeat any adversary on any battlefield. Pursuing the R&D requires attention to identification and development of new technological opportunities, insertion of those technologies into warfighting systems and operations, and management and evaluation of the effectiveness of technology programs.

Technology maturity is a major concern and component of the development and delivery of capabilities. At program initiation, technology maturity is a measure of acquisition program risk and a predictor of program success. Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) provide a "yardsticks" for evaluating technological maturity. However, TRLs alone do not give a complete picture of the state of a technology, or of the risks in adopting a particular technology to the needs of a given acquisition program. Manufacturing Readiness Levels (MRLs) and Sustainment Maturity Levels (SMLs) are additional maturity models that can be used to assess risk and assist in the development and delivery of affordable capabilities.

Figure 8-3 Technology Readiness Levels

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) provide a systematic metric/measurement system to assess the maturity of a particular technology. TRLs enable a consistent comparison of maturity between different types of technology. The TRL approach has been used for many years in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and is the technology maturity measurement approach for all new DOD programs. TRLs have been primarily used as a tool to assist in tracking technologies in development and their transition into production. The nine hardware TRLs (Figure 8-3) are defined as follows:

• TRL 1: Basic principles observed and reported.
• TRL 2: Technology concept or application formulated.
• TRL 3: Experimental and analytical critical function and characteristic proof of concept.
• TRL 4: Component or breadboard validation in a laboratory environment.
• TRL 5: Component or breadboard validation in a relevant environment.
• TRL 6: System or subsystem model or prototype demonstrated in a relevant environment.
• TRL 7: System prototype demonstration in an operational environment.
• TRL 8: Actual system completed and "flight qualified" through test and demonstration.
• TRL 9: Actual system "flight proven" through successful mission operations.

TRLs provide a common language and widely-understood standard for:

• Assessing the performance maturity of a technology and plans for its future maturation; and
• Understanding the level of performance risk in trying to transition the technology into a weapon system application.

Manufacturing Readiness Levels (MRLs) were designed to be measures used to assess the maturity of a given technology, component or system from a manufacturing prospective. The purpose of MRLs is to provide decision makers (at all levels) with a common understanding of the relative maturity (and attendant risks) associated with manufacturing technologies, products, and processes being considered. Manufacturing risk identification and management must begin at the earliest stages of technology development, and continue vigorously throughout each stage of a program's life-cycles.

Table 8-1 MRL Definitions

Manufacturing readiness and technology readiness go hand-in-hand. MRLs, in conjunction with TRLs, are key measures that can be use do identify and define risk when a technology or process is being matured and/or transitioned to a system.

It is quite common for manufacturing readiness to be paced by technology readiness or design stability. Manufacturing processes will not be able to mature until the product technology and product design are stable. MRLs can also be used to define manufacturing readiness and risk at the system or subsystem level. For those reasons, the MRL definitions were designed to include a nominal level of technology readiness as a prerequisite for each level of manufacturing readiness.

MRLs were developed by a joint Government/Industry working group under the auspices of the Joint Defense Manufacturing Technology Panel (JDMTP).

The Sustainment Maturity Level (SML) concept was established to help the Product Support Manager (PSM) identify the appropriate level of maturity the support plan should achieve at each milestone and the extent to which a program's product support implementation efforts are ― likely to result in the timely delivery of a level of capability to the Warfighter. Achieving the appropriate maturity levels will help the PSM evolve the program's product support approach to achieve the best value support solution. The SMLs provide a uniform metric to measure and communicate the expected life cycle sustainment maturity as well as provide the basis for root cause analysis when risks are identified and support OSD's governance responsibilities during MDAP program reviews. Focus is on assessing the sustainment strategy development and implementation status towards achieving Full Operational Capability and, where applicable, determining the risk associated with achieving the sustainment KPP.

SMLs were crafted to address the full range of support options, from traditional organic based to full commercial based product support. They provide a standard way of documenting the product support implementation status that can be traced back to life cycle product support policy and guidance without prescribing a specific solution. SMLs provide the PSM a disciplined structure and rigor for assessing program performance based product support implementation status and is compatible with the design evolution of the system being supported.