Industry's Role in Development Planning

There are numerous instances where this same spirit of collaboration between Government and Industry would have proved equally beneficial in starting new acquisitions. However, in order to achieve this level of success, it is necessary that Government and Industry work together to define a Development Planning process that not only allows proper collaboration while maintaining appropriate Government/Industry roles and responsibilities, but also encourages and incentivizes it.

A good Development Planning process provides for early integration across the Component level Development Planning, Engineering, Science & Technology (S&T), and Industry communities. The current relationship between these communities is ad hoc at best. Most collaborative efforts are performed in a one on one proprietary relationship. There is no institutionalized process in place outside of a sole source environment defining how to apply Development Planning mechanisms to promote Government/Industry collaboration in either
the pre‐Materiel Development Decision (pre‐MDD) or pre‐Milestone A timeframe. The result is that the Government is not taking advantage of the significant intellectual capital that Industry provides and Industry is left trying to discern the Government’s desires with little or no insight. One implication from the lack of collaboration is increased risk that both Government and Industry IRAD investments are not directly tied to identified mission capability gaps/needs,
culminating in inefficient IRAD investment and poor technology transition to fielded capabilities. Additionally, the lack of a collaborative environment does not allow the Government to be fully informed as to technology assessment, cost realism, manufacturing readiness, etc., which has inhibited fully informed decisions on programs that have been initiated in the recent past.