The Army yesterday said it will host an Industry Day Jan. 11 at Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Md., for industry partners participating in, or that wish to participate in the Army’s Network Integration Evaluation (NIE)/Agile Process.
“This is the second in a series of industry days meant to keep our small and large business partners informed as the Army’s Agile Process continues to advance,” said Col. Dan Hughes, director of the Army’s System of Systems Integration Directorate. “We selected APG for this event to show industry the Army’s laboratory capability that will be used to integrate, evaluate and risk-reduce network capabilities in support of the NIE process.”
The goal of the Industry Day is to continue to inform industry about the direction of the Agile Process and network integration requirements that support the NIE and to outline future NIE participation opportunities, the service said in a statement.
The Army is transforming its current acquisition methods through the Agile Process, with the goal of improving efficiency and effectiveness, reducing the amount of time and resources necessary to respond to the rapid changes in requirements associated with current operations, emergent information technology and modifications to the Army force structure.
The NIE is a key component of the Agile Process, a semi-annual event designed to accelerate and improve the way network technologies are delivered to soldiers.
This Industry Day will update Agile Process criteria and review capability gaps that exist as the Army continues to develop and solidify the Capability Set 13 Integrated Network Baseline for fielding, and then continue incremental improvements to that baseline as technology advances, programs of record mature and operational needs are realized, the statement said.
Industry will be offered a first-hand look at the APG laboratories that support the NIE Agile Process. These laboratory assessments will inform the Army’s candidate selections and allow for necessary integration work to take place before insertion into the NIE at Fort Bliss/WSMR.
“In the second NIE, industry partners, for the first time brought in their systems and equipment to fill Army capability gaps,” Hughes said. “This industry participation, from both large defense companies and small business entities, is absolutely critical to this process. The NIEs will ultimately help Army decide what systems to deploy, in a quicker and more cost-effective manner than we’ve used in the past. The more commercial technology we can use, the better off we will be.”
The Army has developed a holistic network strategy that fundamentally changes how the network will be acquired, tested and deployed, the service statement said. This new approach is to deploy network capabilities that are integrated from the Tactical Operations Center to the soldier and will be fielded in two-year increments closely linked to how deploying brigades train, equip and deploy. This provides a means to integrate the latest in network technology and get it to deploying forces quickly. To support this strategy, network acquisition efforts will facilitate rapid implementation of commercial and government technologies to establish a network baseline, and then will rapidly build from it. The NIE/Agile Process are pivotal to bringing new industry solutions into this process in order to enhance network capability.
For further details: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=c77e3c01f96bca899cd22350fe390a63&tab=core&_cview=0