WASHINGTON (Feb. 19, 2014) -- Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Heidi Shyu serves as the Army acquisition executive, the senior procurement executive, science advisor to the Secretary of the Army, and the Army's senior research and development official. She also has principal responsibility for all Department of the Army matters related to logistics. She appoints and manages program executive officers and manages the Army Acquisition Corps and Army Acquisition Workforce.
Q: What is your vision for ASA(ALT) collaboration with industry, academia and other organizations?
A: I think collaboration is really essential. No single person or organization possesses a monopoly on innovative ideas. It is critical for us to collaborate with industry, academia, federally funded R&D centers and other government organizations to solve difficult problems. So my vision is that we will collaborate across the board to spur innovation.
In the S&T arena, we work closely with academia. We also have the Broad Agency Announcement, small business forums, cross--service collaboration on Research, Development, Test and Evaluation. We collaborate with DARPA and university affiliated research centers. We have individual investigator grants and collaborations with partner nations. Defense companies are willing to invest their R&D dollars to help solve the Army's challenges, so we need to dialogue with them to inform them of our challenges and stay abreast of their ideas, design and development activities. The goal is to get a multitude of ideas to figure out how to solve problems. Collaboration is critical.
Q: How do you see technology providing Soldiers with the decisive edge?
A: There are many technologies that can provide Soldiers with the decisive edge. One of our key goals is to develop lighter and stronger armor. Why? Because it will enhance survivability and improve mobility. We're also developing initiatives like continuous soldier health sensing and monitoring, disruptive energetic materials that could provide increased lethality, bio-inspired sensing to eliminate tactical surprise, and energy harvesting to reduce our dependence on fuel.
Q: How do budget concerns affect your vision?
A: The Army has by and large protected its S&T budget. The rest of the budget has faced double-digit reductions. The American Soldier is the best equipped in the world -- thanks to our materiel enterprise. We must continue to invest in S&T in order to equip our Soldier of the future.
We have focused on a 30-year plan, called the long-range investment requirements analysis, or LIRA, which is enabling us to link S&T efforts to programs of record. This will allow us to focus our research activities to address capability shortfalls.
Q: How does ASA(ALT) partner with U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, its centers and laboratories?
A: The partnership we have with RDECOM is critical. RDECOM plays a very important role across all of the PEOs and the acquisition community by providing critical functions and skill sets such as research, development, systems engineering, design, performance analysis, modeling and simulation, software, reliability analysis, prototyping, integration and test, and more. For example:
*CERDEC Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate S&T provided our Soldiers the ability to dominate the night
*NSRDEC has provided transportable high energy efficient shower units, kitchen units and shelters
*AMRDEC has provided critical missile expertise to PEO Missile & Space
*TARDEC has provided high-fidelity modeling and simulation capabilities that accurately predict blast effects on our vehicles and enable us to design more survivable vehicles to reduce injuries to our Soldiers
*All of CERDEC has provided technical assessment of the effectiveness of our tactical radios
Q: What are your expectations from Army researchers, scientists and engineers?
A: It's important for our Army researchers, scientists and engineers to stay fully abreast of the latest technologies and where the research is going. They really have to be masters of their domain to solve the Army's difficult problems. We rely on them to give us the next generation of capabilities.
I'd like to see tighter linkages between the S&T community with the PMs, PEOs and the requirements community to ensure relevance, especially in this fiscally challenged environment. Ultimately we must understand the art of the possible and how to structure that for the future. As we look at the S&T capabilities we need to develop, I think it is critical for our researchers to tie into our 30-year road-map.
One of the key things I think the Army needs to do is ensure we provide our people with a research environment where they can innovate. We have world-class scientists and engineers in their field, and they are highly motivated to solve the most difficult problems for our Soldiers. I've had the pleasure of meeting many of our outstanding researchers, scientists and engineers, and I really admire their dedication, passion for their work and innovation. I'm very impressed with our caliber of researchers, and they are the critical enablers for us to develop the next generation of capabilities for our Soldiers.
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RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. AMC is the Army's premier provider of materiel readiness -- technology, acquisition support, materiel development, logistics power projection, and sustainment -- to the total force, across the spectrum of joint military operations. If a Soldier shoots it, drives it, flies it, wears it, eats it or communicates with it, AMC provides it.
Related Documents:
Army Technology Magazine: Partnerships [PDF]
Related Links:
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology
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