MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. — The Marine Corps is experimenting with ways to rapidly “buy, try and decide” on non-development equipment outside the traditional plodding acquisition process.
Large multi-billion-dollar acquisition programs like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter need to follow the established Joint Capabilities Integration and Development Process (JCIDS) that provides oversight for development and cost, said Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, chief of Marine Corps Combat Development Command. 
“You need that deliberate JCIDS process to make sure you get it right,” Walsh said Tuesday at the Modern Day Marine Military Expo in Quantico, Va. “If it’s a quadcopter that I’m going to put down to the squad level, I damn sure don’t want to put that through the JCIDS process. I want to get that thing quickly out there. If we like it, we’re going to buy it and put it out there.”
That should be welcome news to vendors at the Modern Day Marine Show, which focuses on infantry gear and individual weapons more than high-end vehicles and systems. However, for the second year in a row, the show has served as the venue for companies building the Marine Corps’ new amphibious combat vehicle to face off against their competition.
Central to the show this year are ACVs built by BAE Systems and SAIC [SAIC], which both hold $100 million-plus engineering and manufacturing development contracts covering 13 vehicles apiece. Most of the square footage is dedicated to clothing, small arms and other company-, platoon- and squad-level tactical technologies.
With that gear becoming ever more sophisticated while both smaller and more affordable, the Marine Corps finds itself mired in JCIDS when it wants to buy even basic infantry gear. Equipment that a decade ago would require a concerted development and integration effort like ground robots or unmanned aerial systems are now rapidly produced and readily available on the commercial market. Such equipment that has practical military application should have a faster way into Marines’ kits, Walsh said.
The Marine Corps is receiving directive from all angles – the Secretary of Defense, Congress, its own leadership – to innovate and acquire state-of-the art gear and weapons at a faster clip, Walsh said. With everyone on the same page, now is the time to enshrine speedy acquisition in rules, regulations and laws, he said.
“The technologies are changing so quickly, that we are looking for those capabilities we can rapidly develop. I think you see a push from Congress to do it and we’ll push back to Congress and say ‘Write the laws to help us do it.’ … The momentum is to go faster and certainly General Neller has got his foot on the gas.”
Brig. Gen. Joseph Shrader, chief of Marine Corps Systems Command, said he agreed the JCIDS process has value in guiding large programs through development and ensuring adequate competition among industry. On the other hand, it is an inordinately slow method of procuring technologies that are known and proven in the commercial world.
“There is some goodness that comes out of the process,” Shrader said. “The process makes sure that we get the right stuff. Particularly it vets the requirement. As far as our industry partners, the process keeps the playing field level. It makes sure there is competition and competition helps us control cost.”
On the flip side, the process also moves at a deliberate, prescribed pace and can slow down acquisitions, Shrader said.
“If we allow it to, it will slow us down because we get into the mindset that everything is sequencial, it’s in series, you can’t do things in parallel, those kinds of things,” Shrader said.
“If you know the capability is already out there … then you can bypass all of that but you don’t want to step off into a program of record, because you still want to buy it and try it and then decide,” he said. “Once you decide you want to go after that … then we have to looks at how we get it into the process so that we can sustain it. The only way to truly sustain something once it’s fielded, it has got to get into the program-of-record process.”
The idea is to perform “rapid prototyping” – a common buzzword in all military services in recent years prior to a program reaching the traditional milestone-B development stage. The Marine Corps would either build or buy existing, non-developmental systems then test and field them before deciding whether to create a full-scale program of record. That would occur when a technology is identified as worthy of inclusion in the Marine Corps arsenal and then codified as a program of record so the service can budget for its sustainment, Shrader said.
“Throughout the last 10 to 15 years we have fielded a lot of capabilities fast in answering urgent needs, but what we didn’t do is we didn’t do due diligence when it comes to sustaining it. … Rapid prototyping is not a way to bypass the process. It’s a way to rapidly get through the process, buy it, try it and decide.”
Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh is a confirmed speaker at the 2016 Defense Daily Open Architecture Summit, scheduled for Oct. 18 at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C. An agenda and information on registration is available at www.openarchitecturesummit.com