REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- Army acquisition officers toured several U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center facilities as part of a three week training course June 8.
Functional Area 51 Acquisition Intermediate Qualification Course provides advanced acquisition-related education to military serving in various acquisition roles. Most of the 19 Soldiers are senior captains or majors with 11-13 years of service and have completed previous acquisition assignments.
"These officers are the future of the Army's Acquisition Corps," AMRDEC Acting Military Deputy Director, Steven Fisher said.
"Some will depart the FA51 course and not return to Redstone Arsenal or AMRDEC. Thus, this may be our only opportunity to show the future Project Management Offices AMRDEC's unique capabilities for future collaboration."
AMRDEC has partnered with the program since 2011. Tour stops at AMRDEC include the Prototype Integration Facility, the Software Engineering Directorate, the Systems and Simulation Development Directorate and the Fixed Wing Lab.
"It's important for us to know what capabilities exist within other organizations so we could collaborate in the future," said Maj. Adam Samiof, assistant product manager for the CH-47F, PEO Aviation and course participant. "In a PM office, you could become tunnel visioned to use internal channels to get capability improvements. When you realize you have government facilities that you can rapidly partner with, it provides a great benefit for your program, especially when it comes things like Operational Needs Statement."
FA51 IQC prepares students for critical acquisition assignments. The program provides more advanced acquisition-related education to military who have previous acquisition assignments. The goal is to develop people into acquisition leaders capable of leading and managing any acquisition organization.
The class tours government and commercial acquisition activities. According to the FA51 website, this agenda also includes stops at Program Executive Office Missiles and Space, Army Contracting Command, U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center, Defense Contract Management Agency, Arnold Air Force Base, and Anniston Army Depot and major corporate companies that support the government. During these stops, Soldiers hear from senior leader guest speakers.
"I didn't realize that the processes we have at MSIC can tie so closely with the processes at AMRDEC," said Maj. Jeffrey Hart, procurement officer at the Missile and Space Intelligence Center.
"It's been impactful to see how other organizations do things. If we, as an Army agency, can observe alternative ways to do a particular process more efficiently, we can get the Warfighter what they need faster."
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U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to provide innovative research, development and engineering to produce capabilities for decisive overmatch to the Army against the complexities of the current and future operating environments in support of the Joint Warfighter and the Nation. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.
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Army.mil: Science and Technology News
U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command
U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command
U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center
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