The Army program executive office tasked with delivering new tools to the service’s tactical network is creating a new office to realign the organization to better fit Army network modernization efforts.
The Army’s PEO Command, Control, Communications-Tactical will add a new project lead office, called Project Lead Integration, Interoperability and Services (PL I2S) that will help coordinate between the PEO C3T’s tactical network program offices and Army Futures Command’s Network Cross-Functional Team. The new office formally stood up July 10.
“This is really going to enable [us] to do much more focused activities as we realign to get ourselves closely related to the Network-CFT,” said Joseph Welch, deputy program executive officer, during an Aberdeen Proving Ground virtual industry day in June.
Army PEO C3T and the Network-CFT are in the first phase of procuring what the service calls Capability Set ’21, the first round of new network tools to be delivered to soldiers next year. The new office will not have a direct role in the fielding of Capability Set ’21 but will be involved in the development of future capability sets, said Paul Mehney, communications director for Army PEO C3T.
PEO C3T’s new leader, Brig. Gen. Rob Collins, said that a network integration and interoperability office was needed because of the myriad pieces that connect to the tactical network, such as the enterprise network, soldiers and mission command.
“What the I2S team is going to be able to ensure is that we have a single focal point to integrate all that to those capability sets [and] kind of serve as a single focal over to our network-CFT as they’re starting to look at the various things that can come together in the network and make sure that we have ... not just an integrated tactical network within a tactical formation, but across even how it connects back into the enterprise” Collins said in an interview with C4ISRNET. “By codifying that, formalizing that into its own organization, that will be our dedicated arm to assure that we pull this all together to make that network fully integrated.”
The new office will be led by J. Ward Roberts, the former acting executive director of the Office of the Chief Systems Engineer for the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, technology and logistics.
The PEO and the network cross-functional team are also developing Capability Set ’23, focused on increasing network capacity, resiliency and convergence. The new office will set experimentation plans as well as help transition technologies from a preliminary design review of Capability Set ’23 technologies into programs of record and operational assessments. That preliminary design review is scheduled for next spring.
In addition, a new product manager office, called Product Manager Capability Set Development, will work out of PL I2S. That office will assign staff and resources to “manage technical integration across the PEO in support of capability set development efforts,” Mehney said.
That office “will work across project management organizations both within PEO C3T and other PEOs to promote synergy in planning, execution, and risk management, and serve as a touch-point for systems engineering, design and testing in collaboration with the N-CFT,” Mehney said. “Creating this new product office will also allow for continuity of mission between CS21 and CS23 deliveries.”
Other product management offices will be moved to PL I2S’ purview. Product Manager Command Post Integrated Infrastructure will move from Project Manager Mission Command and Product Manager Tactical Cyber and Network Operations will realign from Project Manager Tactical Network. Common Hardware Systems and Tactical Network Initialization and Configuration project leads will also join PL I2S.
In addition, Project Manager Tactical Radios will add Product Lead Communications Security, a move Mehney said “better aligns the technical experts that provide radio key and cryptographic capability with the radio programs they support.”
Companies interested in entering the capability set process should still start with the cross-functional team’s market research division, Mehney said. PL I2S will also conduct market research as part of its capability set design responsibilities.
The office known as “Project Lead, network enablers” will close as part of the realignment.
Andrew Eversden covers all things defense technology for C4ISRNET. He previously reported on federal IT and cybersecurity for Federal Times and Fifth Domain, and worked as a congressional reporting fellow for the Texas Tribune. He was also a Washington intern for the Durango Herald. Andrew is a graduate of American University.
