Closing the Gaps...
Capability Solutions Management
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
By Linda Learn
With ever-changing political climates and rapidly
evolving threats, our military is faced with the constant
need to evaluate capabilities to ensure that they meet
or outpace those of our adversaries. So how should
the Navy’s leaders go about identifying and closing
gaps in capability? This has been a long-standing
question with far reaching strategic, budgetary, and
organizational implications.
On 9 December 2010, the Chief of Naval Operations
(CNO) hosted a summit on Integration and Interoperability
(I&I) that tackled this question. At the summit,
the Naval Air Warfare Center (NAVAIR) proposed
a sequential, proactive approach to identify shortfalls
in current capabilities, develop comprehensive
solution recommendations to identify shortfalls and
process the results within the Department of the Navy
(DON) for approval, execution, and implementation
in the Fleet. The objective of the process was to begin
with input from the Fleet and look across systems to
identify capability gaps and solutions in effects/kill
chains associated with specific weapon-target pairs.
A generic example of such a kill chain would be a
scenario in which a United States Carrier Strike Group
(CSG) is located in one of the world’s “hot spots” and
the adversary in that region launches “Red Missile
X” at the carrier; the CSG responds by engaging that
threat with “Blue Weapon Y” (i.e., Blue Weapon Y
vs. Red Missile X). The question becomes “How well
does that weapon perform against that threat?” It’s a
question that assesses the System of Systems (SoS) in
a kill chain that spans search, detect, track, identify,
engage, assess, etc.
When it comes to fixing problems or inserting new
technologies into the Fleet, funding lines have historically
dictated that maturation and deployment of new
capabilities focus on individual systems rather than
SoSs. As voiced by NAVAIR’s Vice Admiral David
Dunaway in a recent issue of Proceedings Magazine,
"That important alignment is necessary and must
continue to be executed vigorously. However, we
must also implement a new process that includes a
horizontally integrated view of how that system will
work in the System of Systems (SoS).”
Since the summit, representatives from NAVAIR;
the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division
(NSWCDD); the Naval Undersea Warfare Center,
Newport (NUWC Newport); Space and Naval Warfare
Systems Command (SPAWAR); Chief of Naval
Operations (OPNAV); Commander, Operational Test
and Evaluation Forces (COTF); Fleet Forces Command
(FFC); the Naval Air and Missile Defense Command
(NAMDC); the Naval Mine and Anti-Submarine
Warfare Command (NMAWC); and the Naval
Strike and Air Warfare Center (NSAWC) have worked
together to refine and implement the process initially
proposed at the 2010 I&I Summit. In December of
2012, these efforts culminated in the signing of the
I&I Charter by the Vice Chief of Naval Operations,
ADM Mark Ferguson. From that time, the process
has been through several iterations.
The first step in the I&I process is the Warfare
Capability Baseline (WCB) assessment. The WCB
team takes specific weapon-target pairs designated
by the Fleet as high priority and develops the mission
threads and Tactical Situations (TACSITS) that
provide context. They develop scoring criteria for
such areas as search, detect, track, identify, engage,
and assess (and others as necessary); then they score
each task in technical detail. The findings are housed
in a master database at COTF. A mock example of
possible results is depicted graphically in Figure 1.
The next step in the process is to look for potential
solutions across the entire spectrum that includes
Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership
and Education, Personnel and Facilities (DOTMLPF).
That’s where the Capability Solutions Management
(CSM) Team comes in. Led by the Warfare
Development Command (WDC) for the mission area
under consideration (i.e., NAMDC is the WDC for
the Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD)), the
team also includes experts from across the DOTMLFP
spectrum. Their goal is to find solutions that can be
acquired within the five years spanning the Fiscal
Year Development Plan (FYDP).
As a leader in RDT&E, NSWCDD’s primary role
on the CSM Team has been to assemble and lead
the Materiel Solutions Development Team (MSDT).
A subset of the larger CSM team, the MSDT delves
into potential materiel solutions and applies a rigorous
analytical assessment. The team is comprised of
experts from each of the following disciplines: Systems
Engineering, Warfighter Integration, Architecture,
and Warfare Analysis.'
This task is a challenge in communications as much
as technical ability. It requires reaching across the
internal NSWCDD departments as well as to other
System Commands (SYSCOMs), WDCs, program
offices, research facilities and others with expertise
that can aid in the analysis and evaluation task.
Each potential solution is considered in the context
of the kill chain and TACSIT in which the WCB
team evaluated it. The final output is presented in
the Integrated Capability Package (ICP), a document
written in a prescribed format that provides DOTMLPF
recommendations to close gaps identified by the
WCB. The final recommendations are grouped into
three categories:
Immediate: Solutions that are currently available
Near-term: Solutions that can be delivered in 1-2 years
Mid-term: Solutions that can be delivered in 3-5 years
NAMDC presents the final document to FFC, who
reviews it and makes any necessary changes. It is then
delivered to OPNAV for consideration in the Program
Objective Memorandum (POM) budgeting cycle.
The I&I process is not alone in the Navy’s efforts
to identify and close gaps. NAMDC follows a Warfare
Improvement Program (WIP) process. The
Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems
(PEO IWS) employs a Capability Phasing Plan (CPP)
process. SPAWAR makes evaluations and recommendations
based on a Portfolio Health Assessment
(PHA). Although seemingly disparate processes, the
object of all of them is to identify gaps and submit
proposed solutions to the POM cycle. Recent efforts
have been driving toward a more cohesive approach
that capitalizes on the “best of all worlds.” The I&I
process is now merging with existing processes to
feed the POM cycles at OPNAV.
To return to the original question… “How should
our leaders go about identifying and closing capability
gaps?” The answer will never be easy. We live
in a world of growing complexity with increasingly
complicated problems that require increasingly innovative
solutions. The I&I process is a step in the right
direction to ensure that the systems delivered have
been evaluated across the DOTMLPF spectrum in
the relevant mission contexts to ensure that the Navy
brings the best possible solutions to the problems that
are the highest priority to the Fleet.