U.S. Special Operations Command’s (USSOCOM) procurement of its futuristic Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) is about redesigning a staid and bureaucratic acquisition process to help attract non-traditional suppliers being lured toward Silicon Valley-type jobs.
USSOCOM Acquisition Deputy James Geurts told Defense Daily Tuesday TALOS is about allowing anyone who has a piece of equipment or capability desirable to the command to integrate it quickly. Geurts said TALOS is designed as a more collaborative business model than the traditional Defense Department approach of requests for information (RFI) and requests for proposals (RFP).
“How do you attract the 19-year old Google Glass guy to come to work for Northrop (Grumman) or Lockheed (Martin),” Geurts said Tuesday during a National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) event in downtown Washington. “How do you get folks in that space who wouldn’t normally come in there?”
Geurts said part of the problem is the bureaucratic nature of traditional defense procurement, adding that a small Silicon Valley supplier with a widget is “probably not interested in going through an…audit of their books to hand me a widget for a couple hundred dollars.” TALOS is about removing that barrier, he said.
USSOCOM chief Adm. William McRaven said in February the TALOS approach of partners within DoD working with industry and academia to solve an operational challenge and earn prestige and prize money is the future of doing business with industry. TALOS is using a $10 million prize and associated prestige as a carrot instead of the usual approach, which Geurts described as government guys getting together, coming up with big designs, putting out a RFP three years from now and delivering “something irrelevant” five years after that.
Industry executives have also expressed frustration over the difficulty in attracting talented engineers being courted by “cool” tech industries. Former BAE Systems, Inc., CEO Linda Hudson said in November the industrial base culture lacks attractiveness because of its government nature, which she derisively said includes terms like “furlough” and “sequester.” Hudson also cited the lack of rich benefits packages like pensions and stability that industry formerly used to use to attract high-quality candidates (Defense Daily, Nov. 20).
Three prototypes suits are scheduled to be delivered to USSOCOM in June, a spokesman said Tuesday, but he declined to provide further details. He added that TALOS would be on exhibit at the Sea Air Space Exposition next week in National Harbor, Md.
TALOS, also known as the “Iron Man Suit,” is McRaven’s vision to provide operators lighter, more efficient full-body ballistics protection and super-human strength. Antennas and computers embedded into the suit should increase the wearer’s situational awareness by providing user-friendly and real-time battlefield information. Integrated heaters and coolers would regulate the temperature inside the suit. Embedded sensors would monitor the operator’s core body temperature, skin temperature, heart rate, body position and hydration levels. In the event an operator was wounded, the suit could feasibly start administering the first life-saving oxygen or hemorrhage controls (Defense Daily, Feb. 11).
USSOCOM is the only combatant command with acquisition authority.