The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last summer began trying out a new approach to how it buys certain products and services based on commercial potential–which is defined by large market size versus the smaller unit volumes typical of many federal government programs.
In turn, the business opportunities themselves are based on operational needs within the department’s operating components, the first responder community, and owners and users of critical infrastructure and key resources.
Called SECURE, for System Efficacy through Commercialization, Utilization, Relevance and Evaluation, the program bases needs on well defined operational requirements and a conservative estimate of the potentially available market, and then lets the private sector take care of any needed investments in development as well as third party testing, Thomas Cellucci, chief commercialization officer (CCO) within the DHS Science and Technology Directorate, tells TR2. Cellucci is his second year of a planned five-year term as CCO begun in Aug. 2007.
The fact that the DHS customer market includes its seven key operational components, more than 23 million first responders, and an even larger customer base that owns and uses critical infrastructure and key resources in the U.S., calls for another option in the procurement toolkit, Cellucci says. “The difference with commercialization is the vast majority of what we need is widely distributed products,” he says. “And I would argue from the taxpayer point of view there is no need for us to pay for the development of that.”
Cellucci says that under SECURE, DHS will be looking for products that are already proven, meaning they are at Technology Readiness Level-9. Once the products have been independently tested and evaluated (T&E) to ensure they meet the operational requirements, DHS S&T will verify the findings of the T&E results and post its conclusions online (For more information on SECURE, see: http://www.dhs.gov/xopnbiz/).
Even though Cellucci provides a “conservative” estimate of the likely market for a product that meets a particular requirement, he says there’s no guarantee that anyone will buy it.
“But at least you know the product is desired and know the potential market and you get a Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” he says. “Our responsibility is our test and evaluation people will review that data to ensure that the results and specifications of the product or service actually match with the operating performance.”
Need to Improve Requirements
Cellucci realized when he joined DHS that its requirements generating process was sorely lacking.
Saying that DHS has “deserved the bad press” it has received for how it has gone about acquiring products and services, Cellucci adds that much of it has been due to the fact that “we didn’t articulate requirements in the beginning.” Cellucci, who doesn’t hold back, says, now “I’m embarrassed to say that I have to coach, treat, teach and educate our department internally how to articulate its detailed needs.”
In the 18 months since arriving he has published four books for the department, the most recent a second version on how to develop detailed operational requirements. This book is an annex in the new Acquisition Management Directive (102-01), which was issued last November (See story below). The requirements book can also be found on the “Open for Business” section of the DHS web site.
The book isn’t just for DHS and its components but also for those in the first responder and critical infrastructure and key resource communities that have to properly detail their operational requirements, Cellucci says. The Operational Requirements Documents (ORD) can be driven by any of these communities, he says.
“If you talk to as many first responder and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators as I do on a daily basis, they have been sold a lot of crap, and I use that word specifically, from the private sector,” Cellucci says. “So this [SECURE program] gives assurance to not only DHS but to the other stakeholders that we’re responsible for that this system in fact meets its own specifications, which by the way meets a legitimate need.”
So far just one ORD has been created under SECURE. That was for a forensic video camera that could be deployed in public transit vehicles for post incident analysis.
The ORD for the camera was created within two days, which included input from “real operators,” and within days 26 companies had expressed interest, Cellucci says. DHS entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) for the cameras and within seven weeks had a working prototype with its only investment being verification of the test results, he says.
“And now we’ve got a run at our office with people who want to use that [camera],” he says.
Within the next month or two Cellucci’s office expects to have at least 14 more ORDs completed. These a fuel tank blast mitigation system, a chemical weapon trace detection system, counter-improvised explosive device threat modeling, a first responder decision support system, and a less lethal threat incapacitation system for vehicles.
“Let me be clear,” Cellucci says. “The Commercialization Office doesn’t want to be writing ORDs. We are priming the pump to teach and educate people in the department how to do it because as I said in an open and forthright way, we do not do a good jot articulating detailed needs.”
The SECURE program has drawn interest from the Defense Department for its alternative approach to procurement, Cellucci says. He has already briefed DoD and some defense agencies about it.