Assessment of the U.S. Army Natick Research, Development, and Engineering Center (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Introduction
Introduction
Pages 14-32
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From page 14... ...
The Department of the Army voiced a strong need during 1995 for world-cIass research. "The Army research mission is to identify and conduct world-class research in areas having a high potential to significantly improve land warfighting capability, to include leveraging the research efforts of other government agencies, academia, and industry" (Army Science and Technology Master Plan, 19951.
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From page 15... ...
(NRC, 19961. Drawing on materials from industry, academia, and government (e.g., discussions, literature, and the experiences of organizations in the private sector that have been recognized for excellence with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award)
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From page 16... ...
. Management of the RDEC particularly wanted the committee to assess the commodity directorates, which are responsible for Natick's key business areas.
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As shown below, the underlying principle of a worId-cIass R&D organization is demonstrated commitment, which is the foundation of the five pillars, which in turn support the competitive advantages (see Figure IBM. The five pillars are Resources and Capabilities, Strategic Vision, Quality Focus, Customer Focus, and Value Creation.
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From page 18... ...
18 ASSESSMENT OF THE U.S. ARMY NA TICK RDEC Ten Key Issues During the contract negotiations between the Natick RDEC and the NRC that preceded phase one, ten key issues to be addressed by the NRC in the study report were included in the statement of work.
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From page 19... ...
Pillar , _ ~ _ _ _ Personnel quality Capacity for Proper portfolio Budget breakthroughs Product performance RD and E capabilities, Continuous Cycle time and skills, talents improvement responsiveness Use of external Commitment to quality Value of work In resources Structured processes progress Important technologies Learning environment Organizational climate Quality of research Information technology Facilities and infrastructure _ _ _ , ~ l Quality Focus Pillar , FIGURE 1-2 The five pillars and 25 characteristics. 19 Value Creation Pillar )
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From page 20... ...
The extensive literature on what characterizes good R&D supports results of the committee's phase-one report. In phase one the committee consulted with representatives of industry, academia, and government concerning the essential elements of worlLd-cIass performance and reviewed several leading organizations and their paths to success (three of these organizations were winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award)
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From page 21... ...
The committee's fundamental assumption was that one needs to evaluate the work processes of an organization as is done in major quality award programs (e.g., the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award) to determine if an organization is performing at a worId-class level.
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From page 22... ...
The committee assessed STD and ASCD, the two support directorates, periodically through written responses to questions and as part of the visits to the 3The written responses from the commodity directorates are available for review by contacting the Division of Military Science and Technology by phone at (202) 334-3118 or in writing to: National Research Council, HA258, 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C.
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From page 23... ...
The contributions of the support directorates to the overall performance of the Natick RDEC and its commodity directorates (who are the primary customers of STD and ASCD) were considered most relevant.
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Figure I-3 shows how the Soldier Systems Command and the Natick RDEC relate to other components of the Army Materiel Command under the Secretary of the Army. The mission of the Natick RDEC is to "maximize the individual soldier's survivability, sustainability, mobility, combat effectiveness, and quality of life," which implies "treating the soldier as a system" (Brandler, ~ 9961.
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Funding projections shown to the committee suggest that funding for the Natick RDEC will be reduced to about $ 1 00 million by fiscal year ~ 999. Internal Organizational Structure, Visions, and Missions This section describes the Natick RDEC's five major organizational units-three commodity directorates and two support directorates and the role each one plays.
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From page 26... ...
The budget is projected to remain approximately the same through fiscal year 1999. in October ~ 995, MobD adopted a new organizational structure, which had several objectives, including reducing layers of management, improving opportunities for advancement in technical careers, improving support of customer needs, arid improving workforce morale and motivation.5 Figure I-5 shows the MobD organizational structure.
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From page 27... ...
The mission of the directorate is to plan, organize, and conduct the Army's research, development, and engineering programs for combat and noncombat clothing and individual equipment (Granchelli, 1996~. SurD is the system integrator for the following mission areas: chemical and biological protection; ballistic munitions protection; directed energy protection (eye and body)
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From page 28... ...
Subordinate goals include a rapidly deployable field feeding capability that can sustain and enhance soldier performance across the continuum of military operations; and effective and affordable field support equipment and systems to sustain soldiers, enhance their quality of life, and improve their readiness in all combat situations and operations other than war. Other goals include increasing the availability of aircraft and vehicles for missions by providing mobile maintenance capability in forward areas under all weather conditions; developing highly effective, rapidly deployable, high-performance tents to sustain and improve soldier readiness and performance in combat and Restatement of these objectives does not necessarily signify that they have been met.
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From page 29... ...
STD contributes principally through its focus on research and technology that could be useful to the commodity directorates. ASCD's principal contributions are in integrating programs from each of the commodity directorates and presenting and marketing RDEC commodities (viz., promoting the soldier-system concept)
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' Conceptual Office for Full-Time ARPA , Interface 1 , Soldier Perceptions | Foreign Intelligence Office | | InternationalOffice l Advanced Concepts Division r , ~ New Technologies Business Office Programs Management Division Modeling and Concepts Si mu ration Development Branch Branch FIGURE 1-8 Organization of the support directorates. (ARPA: Advanced Research Projects Agency)
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From page 31... ...
ASCD provides analytic and scientific support services to the commodity directorates through its Advanced Concepts Division and other groups that deal with customer liaison, strategic planning, and program management. Within ASCD, the advanced concepts work encompasses operations research for the entire RDEC and supports higher-level decision making through O O the development of modeling and simulation tools and the conduct of various analyses (e.g., analyses of cost and operational effectiveness, risk, and other tradeoffs)
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