2024 Air, Space & Cyber: The Future of Weapons Development
September 17, 2024
The “Future of Weapons Development” panel at AFA’s 2024 Air, Space & Cyber Conference featured Scott Alexander, president of missile solutions at Aerojet Rocketdyne, L3Harris; Randy Fields, chief technology officer at Ultra Intelligence & Communications; Maj. Gen. Stephen T. “Steve” Sargeant, USAF (Ret.), CEO at Marvin Test Solutions; and Michael D. Rothstein, vice president of strategy and requirements for air weapons and sensors at Lockheed Martin’s Missile and Fire Control business area. The panel, held on September 17, was moderated by Col. Ronald Dunlap III, head of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Air Dominance Division. Watch the video below:
Panel Moderator: Ronald Dunlap, Head of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Air Dominance Division:
All right. Welcome all Future Weapons Development Panel. I am Colonel Tyke Dunlap, Air Dominance system program director for the portfolio of air-to-air weapons within the Armament Directorate of the Air Force Lifecycle Management Center at England Air Force base.
Weapons have been the key to every conflict since the first sapient human picked up a rock and struck another. Every significant technology upgrade has driven a leap in the capabilities of weapons. From the discovery of smelting ore to refining steel, gunpowder, dynamite, radios, fission, GPS directed energy, and now autonomy, and apparently the bad word of the week, artificial intelligence. The U.S. Air Force has long relied on kinetic weapons to achieve national security objectives, both as a deterrent and as an instrument of combat power. We have developed the most exquisite and capable technological weapons that can do amazing things with great reliability, but do we have enough, and can we afford them at the price point that we acquire them?
Today’s panel will explore the future of weapons development in today’s environment in the ever-maturing technological base. They’ll give us their perspective on what’s next on the horizon and how they perceive recent changes in the state of weapons, its acquisition process, and what we can collectively, as a defense enterprise, expect to see in the coming years. I’ll give some quick introductions to our panel members and then we’ll dive right into the first question.
So here, Steve Sargent is the CEO of Marvin Test Solutions and previously served as commander of the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, the 56th and 8th Fighter Wings, and Commandant of the USAF Weapons School.
Next in, we have Randy Fields, the Chief Technology Officer for ALTA Intelligence and Communications, C2, I&E business, with more than two decades of experience in defense and commercial software and extensive expertise in the ISR domain.
And Mike Rothstein is Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control’s vice president of strategy and requirements, covering their air power portfolio from weapons and sensors, both domestic and international. In this role, he works to ensure that Lockheed’s business strategy, priorities, and investments align with Warfighter’s current emerging and future needs. Mike joined Lockheed Martin about four years ago, following more than 31 years of service in the Air Force.
And finally at the end, Scott Alexander is the president of the Missile Solutions sector and the Aerojet Rocketdyne segment of L3Harris Technologies. In this role, Scott leads propulsion and energetic programs for missile defense, air defense, tactical and strategic missile systems, as well as ballistic missile target programs that support critical U.S. Defense initiatives. We’ve got a pretty good panel, guys. This is going to be great.
All right. I’m going to target a few questions early on. I’m going to start with Mike. We know that we need the ability, as a nation, to rapidly ramp production of air-launched weapons, particularly if we were to have to fight a peer competitor. As an industry prime, what do you see as the major challenges within our current ecosystem and what would you recommend that we might do differently?
Mike Rothstein, VP of Strategy & Requirements, Air Weapons & Sensors for Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control Business Area:
So Tyke, I was really more prepared to talk about Indo-Pacific economics than this, but since you threw me a zinger, let me pivot on you. So clearly, there are some challenges, right? I think as we look at the fight we need to face as a nation, what our industrial base at large can do in terms of weapons production, we are not where anybody wants us to be and hopefully we can all agree on that.
I think a couple of the challenges, big picture… The first I would say in scalability is certainly a term of art that’s been running around lately. And if I say scalability, let’s call that the ability to ramp production over some metric of time. Months, years, whatever that might be. And scalability, really for the past probably 30 plus years, has been an output of the system, not an input of the system, right? The inputs have tended to be operational performance, whatever those requirements are, or cost or schedule or combinations thereof. Then you bake all that up and you end up with an ecosystem that you then go, “Okay, well, given all those things, what’s the output? How could we ramp production?” As we see on things like [inaudible 00:04:18] or other companies, other weapons. So that’s a challenge.
Certainly, the supply chain is also a challenge. As our weapons have become more complex, as we’ve dealt with tougher problems we need to solve because of the threat range, complexity, EW, all those sorts of things, you end up with complex weapons with a supply base that goes down to second, third, fourth tier. And there is not resilience and effectiveness in the supply chain because we’ve generally valued efficiency. Particularly over these last 30 years we’ve not had a real… Let’s call it since the fall of the Soviet Union. So I think those are two real big challenges we have to get after.
In terms of how we might get after them, I think we really have to start looking about scalability as an input to the system. Right? And we are talking about that now. I would say I think our talks still need to mature a bit and we need to get more discreet about what scalability is required. Right? Two X in two months is very different than three X in one year. And that drives back to how you design your weapons. I think of it like the Apollo 13, if you remember the movie, right? Here’s the parts I can get quickly on the table, what can we build from it? Because if you do that and that’s the Pareto of your supply chain, now you have the ability to ramp.
The second place I think we really have to get after in that, is really just getting on message as an enterprise between government and industry with Congress. And be able to convince Congress that investing in the munitions defense industry base and the ability to surge and have more capacity than is most efficient, is in our national interest. I’ll stop there.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Awesome. Well, thanks then. So, with scalability and capacity being those words that we’re discussing right there when it comes to munitions. Scott, can you talk about how you and the other suppliers are managing those challenges?
Scott Alexander, President of Missile Solutions, Aerojet Rocketdyne, L3Harris:
Yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot, and it’s generally a game of whack-a-mole because, as you’ve mentioned, there’s a lot of pieces to this. In our internal investments, we, year over year, have increased our investment in capacity, quality, operations by over 40%. That, on top of what we’ve done with some of our partners, also with the U.S. government, who also have invested in that capacity. The unfortunate thing about capacity with solid rocket motors, it doesn’t come on in next month or even next year. It’s generally two or three years. So those investments are being made and they will show dividends here as we move into the future.
It’s not only that, though. We’ve taken a site for those that are familiar with Camden, Arkansas. It’s a relatively confined population working for three major companies. The ability to scale there is difficult. So one of the things that we have done, is we are moving our inert production, think nozzles and things like that, out of Camden, and redeploying that in Huntsville, Alabama so that the folks there at Camden can focus on solid rocket motors. So therefore, we have the personnel, which is some of the times the key element that people forget about, that are trained to do very specific tasks and do them over and over again with reliability. It’s not only capacity. For those familiar with Camden, again, it’s thousands of acres with dozens and dozens of buildings. Some of our programs are very well contained within one structure, where we have the ability for canister prep, where we can cast, where we can x-ray, ultimately do final assembly, and then deliver the rocket motors, all in within a small, self-contained, 100 yard area. Some of our motors, not so much. They travel over seven miles doing those same functions.
As we continue to lay out the site with new facilities and these new investments, we’re looking at the process flow of all these programs. We just recently did a week-long Kaizen event on one our programs and we had over 105 different process improvements. Some in minutes, some in hours, and some in days. But ultimately, they all add up to be a great improvement in our ability to produce solid rocket motors. I will tag on to the sub-tier. We are limited by what our sub-tier can ultimately provide in terms of that. So we are actively engaged with our sub-tier. We’ve invested over $25 million into our sub-tier for their capacity and their ability to scale to help us meet the challenge as well.
And then the final thing is really an ask that I would ask for our government customers and ultimately to Congress. These programs that have literally infinity of demand. We really need to take a look at multi-year procurements. Multi-year procurements do a lot of different things. Sure, material costs will be somewhat cheaper, not as much as a lot of people believe, but the overhead costs are generally quite a bit cheaper. Meaning, as a major sub-tier, and I have multiple subcontractors below me, we don’t have to manage five one-year contracts. We manage one five-year contract, ultimately providing great savings to the program, and ultimately add a huge stability to the workforce.
As you get down to these smaller sub-tiers, sometimes 100 folks, one of my canister producers, 150 folks; when we tell them over and over, “We’re going from 12 to 40 a month,” they listen to us. “Yes, yes, yes. Got you.” They do nothing because they don’t have the means to do anything. When they get the contract, I get it through the prime or through the government, to the prime, to me, down to them, ultimately negotiated. At that negotiation, they start to hire folks. And then four months later they start to train those folks. And then four months later they start to produce those. That’s the end of the tip of the tale that we need to be concerned with as well.
So when you say, “What are we doing to increase production?” We’re doing all those things and we continue to need to do all those things. So it is literally a game of whack-a-mole and resilience in the supply chain. Sometimes there’s one tier supplier that’s the only provider of things. So we’re looking to qualify other suppliers so that we can have some flexibility as well. Those in a short nutshell right there, that’s what we’re doing, sir.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
That’s great. So, we could talk about capacity probably all day long, but let’s suppose that the examples we got from Scott expand to the rest of the suppliers in the industries and we all solve this problem. So we’re just cranking out weapons. Steve, how can the Air Force better ensure that rapid fielding of those new weapons that are able to be supported in their deployed locations, especially when they’re deployed in support of multiple platforms?
Maj. Gen. Stephen Sargeant, USAF (Ret.):
Well, I think the first thing that has to happen is that those Warfighters needed to be involved deeply at the set of the requirement, so they’re not surprised and they’re happy when those weapons show up because that’s what they said they needed for the fight. In today’s world, sometimes those change pretty rapidly. We’re seeing requirements change rapidly in Ukraine. But for most of what we’re talking about in the first two questions, those are for long-term production runs of very important weapons. So starting early and getting the requirement right, I think, is the first step to fielding better.
The second is overcome the tendency that every time there’s a new weapon, there’s got to be a whole new infrastructure. A whole new infrastructure. For test, whether that’s in the production facility; in a sub-tier, or prime; or it’s in the equipment that’s going to be used in the field and those back shops and depot repair for the life cycle. It takes a very disciplined look upfront; what’s available, what’s already fielded, and what works across the multiple platforms that are going to use that weapon? Because quite frankly, there are very few weapons we’ve fielded in the last 20 years that are just used in one weapon system. So to stop and take a very, very disciplined approach to what is working, and again, going back to the Warfighter, what is it that they like to use the most, and how does that fit into the concept of operation going forward?
I think everybody in this room could define what ACE is, whether it’s in the Pacific or in USAFE right now. Because for the last few years we’ve heard ACE, ACE, ACE, and ACE. Multi-capable airmen switch to mission-ready airmen. But that’s a very, very slight change, and a very important nuance. But to see how what’s going to be fielded fits into that construct is very, very important. The smaller footprint that goes forward is probably going to ensure better support for those weapons.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Excellent. So looking at that, using existing infrastructure, when we think about that from a development side, the Air Force has pioneered the weapon-to-open-systems architecture and the weapons-to-government-referenced architectures, and the Navy’s adopting it as well. So Randy, how can that adoption of truly open and interoperable systems help reduce the costs associated with modern warfare? And what specific actions can the government take to ensure these systems are producible at scale while maintaining those effective supply chains?
Randy Fields, Chief Technical Officer, Ultra Intelligence & Communications:
I think that’s a great question. Thank you so much, and thank you to the panel. I’m just happy to be amongst such incredible people up here.
I’m a technology and I’m a nerd guy. I really think about this purely at the technology level. In my experience with weapons, it’s usually been lots of closed systems sapped up to the wazoo, and then that ends up really limiting competition. And when you limit competition, the costs of production are going to go up and up and up. I spoke with someone earlier with a couple of shiny things on their shoulder and he said, “I owed the community an apology because I pretty infamously, a couple of years ago, said that, ‘The push for digital engineering in the Air force was just a huge waste of money,’ because what seemed like every time we were delivering something, we were documenting the past. We were not documenting the future.” I think what the Air Force has done incredibly well is push through digital engineering, and what we’re seeing with the government-reference architectures is leading to more open. That open is leading to lower cost, right? That’s enabling us to start to compete for the supply chains and really say, “Who can give me this component?” That’s an incredible thing.
I was in Colonel Fulham’s panel earlier today, just listening, just seeing what’s going on. And it was amazing as they kept drumming the table saying, “Everything has to be open, agile and digital systems.” Well, what that unlocks for us as an industry and as a capability provider, so the airman is able to have the capability they need forward, is we’re able to have a digital model that has to come with everything we deliver. And when you do that, that means that’s going to bring down the cost of integration, that’s going to start to unlock our ability to test it fully digitally and say, “Is this going to work with these components?” And start to have very modular, scalable systems. So we start to think of these things like Lego bricks. And if we’ve got the right number of boosters, let’s start to think about what’s going to be that front end. And that starts to give us so many capabilities moving forward. That’s why I owe everyone an apology because I said, “You’ll never get there.” And then what do you know? Now we’re getting there. So it’s pretty exciting.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
That’s cool. Thanks, Randy. A quick follow up with that then. Let me talk to Scott then again as the key subsystem weapon representative up here. What can the government do again to ensure that key subsystem providers are adopting a culture of using the open standards and embracing modularity and the digital transition?
Scott Alexander:
Yeah, I think simply hyper communication get us involved in every solicitation, whether it’s Ewok or another type of solicitation. Make sure the requirements are documented there so everyone can see them and they’re open. Invite us to the working groups, whether it’s the governor-reference architecture or the most of working groups, defining the requirements. Get us involved. I think a couple of things will happen. You’ll get an interesting perspective. That’s not going to be a perspective from a prime. I was one of those ones. It’ll be a different perspective. Some of those things that you will find interesting and perhaps adopt. The other thing, that will give the ownership to those subcontractors and those industry partners because they were a part of the process to get to the solution. And once you’re part of the process and they literally listen to you and take some of that, you become a huge owner of it, and they will be champions of that going forward. So that’s really the psychology of it, but ultimately, it’s best to get a wide variety of perspectives there.
In terms of the requirements of the MOSA, one size is not going to fit all. There’s going to be some highly high-end technology, closely coupled closed systems. The tenants of MOSA are going to be more difficult, not impossible, but they’ll be more difficult. The more towards commodity that you go, the easier the MOSA will be become. And as we get towards commodity, I would urge on the requirement side some more advice. Let’s not require unattainium. It’s really the 80/20 rule. You’re going to spend 80% of the time and money for that last 20% of capability. Sometimes we really need it. Sometimes the mission really needs it and we do it, but let’s just not paint that broad brush of requirements across the board, because you become unaffordable and schedule goes out the window. So, real clean look at requirements up front and early, as mentioned already.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Excellent. Thank you. Mike, we’re seeing Lockheed and other primes adopting modularity as part of their design and or manufacturing process. I think we believe that you see business opportunities or ROIs through either being a first mover or being positioned to scale that product for multiple demand signals. Whatever that case is, that business case, how can we and I’m going to leverage a little bit of your time in the government asking some questions here. What can we do to more credibly understand and articulate that business case and those savings in our POM process given our fairly antiquated cost estimating procedures and what we do?
Mike Rothstein:
Yeah, I think it’s going to be hard. Just to be very upfront about it and I do think the modularity case… I would applaud PEO Weapons because you are driving that, right? The demand signal from the customer is really what’s driving modularity. So the business case is pretty clear. If you want to play you’ll do it this way, right? And that’s compelling. Now, we are also seeing internal advantages of it as well. We are working harder than we ever have been to get commonality across multiple programs and services that may not even be Air Force. So, we get that reuse and some of those things. I think the directions we’re going are great. GRAs, WOSA, we are all on board.
Modularity, though, really is not going to start to pay dividends until the second or third turn of the crank. Right? One might even argue that on the first turn of the crank, modularity costs more because it’s one more design feature that you have to add in. Now we could argue about how much more, but it is one more variable in the equation. But when you get to the second or third turn of the crank, when you get to the next derivative, when you get to incorporating a new sensor or new whatever it might be, now the modularity, if done well, has lowered that barrier to entry and that’s where we’re going to start to see the savings.
And as we tell that story, whether that’s within the Air Force cost accounting up to CAPE and OSD and The Hill, I think we have to recognize that. As busy as we all are, I would invite your cost estimators to sit down with our supply chain folks, to sit down with our teams, and go through that and see where we’re seeing the savings. And there is a case to be made there. We got to be careful of over-promising early because The Hill has a good memory. Right?
But I think that’s really going to be the best case. It’s going to be sitting down and nugging through it together so that your teams and our teams are going, “Hey, here’s where we’re going to see the savings.” We want to pass that on. Not only, obviously, pass those real savings on, but we want to pass the information on, because we want to be able to articulate the case. I think we’re very much aligned in our incentive to articulate that case well. But I don’t think there’s going to be a magic especially up front. I think it’s actually convincing people that the savings are coming later, which is always a little hard.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Makes sense. That’s great. So I’m going to talk to Randy. And Steve if you want to jump in as well, you’re welcome to, but you don’t have to. There’s a push to bring in, or at least ensure the door is open for small and medium-sized non-traditional vendors to bring their innovations and capabilities to the table. What are those barriers and or opportunities to ensuring this happens specifically in the weapons enterprise?
Randy Fields:
Thank you. I think it comes right off of what you were mentioning in that that initial cost, there’s a barrier to entry in that to do digital engineering you have to have digital engineers. They’d like to get paid. I don’t know if you guys knew about that. And, so you’re going to have to pay for those digital engineers, you have to have the digital engineering infrastructure, you have to pay for cameo licenses. All of that is the beginning point to then be able to get going.
So yeah, the first turn of the crank, you have to pay for all that. But now, on the second and third and fourth and subsequent, that’s when the cost is going to come down. We can start to compete these capabilities in the market by having a requirement that if you’re going to be in the GRA and in the WOSA, you have to submit your models with it. So that infrastructure, which is a barrier initially, is then going to enable disruption. That’s the opportunity.
If this panel were to start a business today and say, “We’re going to go after this thing,” I bet you we could go and disrupt modules. Identify areas that we could go and get new capability. And that is something that a small business can come into this market that’s been traditionally locked behind closed doors, and they can compete and do really interesting things.
So I think beyond just those barriers of needing the facilities and the onboarding and all that kind of stuff, the opportunities is truly disruption. It’s enabling people with great capabilities to get a small team together and offer interesting insights at the modular level in this capability. I mean, that is so interesting.
Maj. Gen. Stephen Sargeant, USAF (Ret.), CEO Marvin Test Solutions:
I think, just to add to that a little bit; If you head to the two exhibition areas and walk around, I think you could see some real world, real time examples of where that’s happening. And I think it’s important that you do. Because we’ve got some small and medium-sized companies, some would say startups at various stages of maturity, who are actually leading the way in some of this modularity right now. And I think while you’re here for another day and a half, it’d be worth your time to go and visit and look them in the eye and see how they got to that point. It was a lot of determination. There aren’t a lot of venture capitalists out there that are willing to invest in defense type projects when they’re just defense type projects. So, the dual use has helped, but in some cases dual use is not necessarily applicable across all of them. So, there are a lot of people that have come here to show you what they’re doing to support you, the Warfighter, going forward. Not in 10 years, but tomorrow morning when you wake up.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Excellent. All right. We’ve talked a little bit about capacity. We’ve talked a little bit about development, something about fielding. I’m going to dig in a little bit with production. There’s a lot of new novel concepts in various advanced manufacturing, additive, robotics. Is there a future in this for weapons? Is it a necessity, or should we keep doing things the way we are doing? And if so, as a future, what are those one facts? I’m going to open that to the panel. First one, I just want to start with-
Scott Alexander:
Yeah, I’ll have a couple comments there. We certainly use additive manufacturing quite extensively in different places. There’s a scramjet that we produce that we’ve reduced the time of production by 75% using additive. And we’ve reduced the number of components by 95% by using additive. So it works very, very, very well.
It is not the answer to everything. Subtractive engineering does work. It works at scale, it works for relatively simple designs. You wouldn’t want to try to… Could you do a rocket motor in additive? Perhaps. Not fast. You can maybe do 10, you can’t do 2,000. It’s a tool, it’s one that we look at very carefully. There’s a lot of tools. You mentioned robotics, obviously. We are using those in areas where it makes sense. The whole digital infrastructure, to be able to understand the quality of all the components and very quickly digitally analyze that is a great tool.
One could think just 15, 20 years ago when you would have the unfortunate failure, you would bring reams and reams of paper out to say, “Okay, what was the pedigree of this particular product and material?” And now that’s all digitally and can be done very quickly. So that’s a quick way to get to the bottom of it.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Okay. Go ahead.
Mike Rothstein:
Yeah, maybe I’ll jump on it. I think we see a lot of places additive can be helpful. I think very much aligned with what Scott was saying. At the same time, it will not be a panacea. And I worry that sometimes we see it as this panacea that’s going to solve all problems. There’s a refrain we say, “How many parts does it take to make a missile?” All of them. And if you can’t scale 100% of your parts, you can’t build a single all up round. There are places that additive is perfectly suited. There are places that additive is growing to be more suited every day. And I think we have to push on all of those.
And that opens up interesting things, not only for scalability and affordability, but potentially, you could envision a world where you’re now additively producing things in theater and you’re cutting down logistics costs and you’re assembling things in theater. There’s lots of good possibilities there. But we’re probably not at a place where we’re additively making complicated sensors yet, or harnesses, or whatever it may be.
And sometimes I worry even on affordability. In general terms, I’m sure it depends on the missile, but the structure of a missile is maybe seven to 10% of the cost. And let’s say we slash the cost 50%. Well, we’ve shaved 3.5% off the missile. Which is good, but it’s not huge in terms of… Right? So I think we have to continue to push, but I think we have to take it with a grain of salt and not get too liquored up about it as being over-promising and under-the-weather.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Excellent. Either of you? We’re good? All right. We’re coming to a close and I want to make sure… I was going to squeeze in one more question, but… Ah, hell, I’m going to do it anyways. All right. Whoever’s going to answer this is going to do it quickly. What are the untapped commercial capabilities, technologies, or processes that the government, by virtue of how we acquire things, is ignoring? Somebody got one?
Randy Fields:
I’ve got a future for you.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Let’s do it.
Randy Fields:
So I study AI at Wharton and one of the things that we’re doing, just looking down the way, is just looking at the future. As you guys have seen from ChatGPT and all this stuff, it’s happening so, so fast. My favorite example I’d like to do is, remember if you had ChatGPT make you an image and it had words in, it’d be all squirrely. Well, try it again today. It is incredible how fast it came.
So if we go back to model-based system engineering, I just want paint a picture that I’ve been looking at. I think with our model-based system engineering, we’re going to be able to wrap AI validations in there and we’re going to be able to have our teams be able to see; If you submit your MBSC package in, AI is going to look across that and say, “Here’s an issue,” and be able to support our fast ability to respond.
Then if we look at the vision for the weapon-based marketplace. Imagine AI is looking across your supply chain and is able to identify; If you’re looking for booster, these guys have got it. If you tie it into our ERPs, it’s going to support our ability to start to be able to improve our supply chain faster and even bring cost down by competing it. It’s an incredible thing and believe it’s going to happen fast. Because we see, if you go on SAP, the world’s biggest ERP, they’ve got AI going all over that thing. It’s going to be the people that can tie that into our supply chain and then pull that into their bids that are going to be the first to make a really competitive approach for our supply chains moving forward.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
That’s great.
Maj. Gen. Stephen Sargeant, USAF (Ret.):
I think you just defined a way forward for Scott, as he was defining with his sub-tier as four months for this part, four months for that, four months, then they might start producing. So with the advances in AI, maybe that can be cut in half pretty darn quickly or even greater.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Yeah, that’s great. All right. I told these guys I’d give them two minutes each in closing. I think I just shaved that down to 90 seconds.
Randy Fields:
Sorry about that.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
We’ll start with Scott. Go ahead.
Scott Alexander:
All right. Well, first of all, I just want to thank the panel members, and it’s great to be part of this panel here. We certainly have our collective work cut out for us. Industry government team to meet this challenge. The threat is real. Everyone hears that. Everyone’s seeing that. Everyone’s experiencing that here at the conference. We do need to scale. We need to figure out how to scale, and we need to figure out how to do it quickly.
At L3Harris, we’ve significantly cut our backlog and we significantly improved our on-time deliveries, but we’re not near of where we want to be and we’re not satisfied where we’re at. Some of the things I talked about today is actions that we’re putting in place. But the biggest action that I would say is open communications at all levels of the contract with the government, and transparency really assists us in all the decisions that we’re making to be able to scale. So the more transparent it is, the better it is. And I’ll just leave it with that thought and turn it back to you.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Thanks. All right, Mike, your turn.
Mike Rothstein:
Yeah, I’ll echo my thanks. Also, you’ve done a lot for putting the effort into the panel and everything as well as my colleagues. As I look at this problem… Particularly around scalability, because we have so many problems. I do think that we have to think about it differently. And I said it up front, I think we have to think about scalability as an input. And I think that’s going to drive earlier conversations and more complicated conversations between the requirements owners, acquisition, industry, to balance those trades. I think if we can get more discreet and more serious about that and go, “What are we willing to give up?” Because it will cost us to give something up. If you want more, if you want to be able to double production in six months, you’re probably not going to have as exquisite a weapon. Right? So where are those trades, starting those conversations earlier.
And I think, Scott, you said a really nice thing. Something we’re not as good at that we should be because primes want to have the conversations with government, and then sometimes we exclude our key suppliers that are really important to that conversation. Because they know where the key needs and the curves are that we might have blind spots to. So if we can do that and get after that earlier in the process, before we start locking down designs, I think that’s going to be, really, the key to get after that.
And the other thing it will take as we look through this whole modularity issue is, by definition, the value proposition, is that we are going to sub-optimize at the individual to optimize across the enterprise, right? That’s going to take discipline. Organizational discipline from the government, organizational discipline from industry. For the “Oh, but yeah, this would be a little bit better.” “But oh, if we did this.” Right? So those are two thoughts I’d leave us for, as an enterprise, to think about.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Terrific. Thanks. Randy.
Randy Fields:
Well, thank you. And thank you, sir, for putting this together. This is great. And moderating us and thank you to the panel as well. This has been really wonderful and putting up with my energy. I think the big thing that I would like to ask of the government is, “How can we do more experimentation?” So when we think about our competitors… Recently, I was at an event in that the keynote speaker said, “On the other side of the world, 12 hours from here, my adversary is going to bed. And I wonder, did I do enough today to outpace them?” And every day I have to ask myself, “Am I doing enough? We have so much bureaucracy, we have so many things that are slowing us down. What are we doing to make sure that we are outpacing that person that is trying to defeat us and our people in uniform?”
So as we look across that, I say, I think we need more experimentation. I think we need to try to find ways to say, “This has been a pain point. Let’s break that system and let’s see if we can do it right and change that, and then find out what breaks from there.” That’s our only way that we can start to go and compete with forces that are not being tied down by bureaucracy. That is something that they’re going to say, “If there’s an issue with it, Steve, you fix it.” And then Steve better fix it. Well, I think we have to do the same thing.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
All right. Steve, bring us home, man. Or to the bar, whichever one you want.
Maj. Gen. Stephen Sargeant, USAF (Ret.):
So I had my fourth level of thanks here. First, to you, for putting this together. You actually took a day of vacation, as I recall, to pull us all together before you started off on a massive TDY schedule. So thank you very much for that. Thanks to the AFA for giving us this opportunity to be up here. And thanks to all of you. Some of you did hit the bar, I saw you down there, before you came up here and hopefully that made it a little bit more entertaining and a little less painful sitting in those chairs for the last 40 minutes.
But one of the things that we could do, kind of piggyback on all this, is; What is it that we, collectively, can step back and look at? We heard one company found days, hours, minutes of reduction in their process improvements, but what across the board can we all look at and help to define, what is it that we’re doing that’s hindering our ability to get what the Warfighter needs sooner? To get what they need sooner?
And it doesn’t matter whether you’re in uniform, civilian clothes sitting out there in the government, or civilian clothes up here. There’s probably something that we’re all doing that we’ve been doing for a long time, that if we really take a minute and step back there may be a way to streamline the acquisition process to save a month. A month would be a lot if you’re a sub-tier supplier to cut into the time it takes to ramp up. Because they’re not sitting there at 100% capacity because they can’t afford to. What is it that we’re doing in our particular job that could move things forward a couple of weeks faster? Whether that’s on the Hill or that’s in Southern California.
So there’s probably something that we could all be doing there, helping to ensure the Warfighter gets what they need when they need it. And it’s what they really want to employ because they know that’s what’s needed. Because quite frankly, we have pretty good ideas up here. You’ve heard from these three gentlemen to my left. I think we’d all agree with that. And the companies that they represent. But the ones who really know are the ones at the pointy end of the spear. And if we can all take a little time after this week to step back, I’ll bet we can figure out how to shave off some significant time that might just help get those weapons to the people that need them sooner. So thanks again for all this today.
Panel Moderator: Col. Ronald Dunlap:
Thanks, Steve. Well, thanks for the panel. So, everybody. Appreciate it.
This transcript was auto-generated, and may not be 100 percent accurate. The source audio and video can be accessed above.