Assessment of the U.S. Army Natick Research, Development, and Engineering Center (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Conclusions and Recommendations
Conclusions and Recommendations
Pages 142-158
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The conclusions and recommendations related to the Strategic Vision, Resources and Capabilities, and Quality Focus pillars follow. Strategic Vision Pillar Conclusion I
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, the vector now seems to be heading up. If the new strategic planning process continues to receive the dedicated commitment of top-level management and actively involves personnel throughout the RDEC, the committee believes the rating of the Strategic Vision pillar will improve.
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The new initiatives should consider overall technical direction of the RDEC beyond the tenure of the current leadership. Managers should consider developing technology plans or road maps showing generations of technologies that support the overall goals.
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Unless steps can be taken to stop the erosion of the base of scientific and technical talent and experience, resources and capabilities will inevitably decline. The committee recognizes that this problem is not under the direct control of the Natick RDEC.
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defense establishment is trying to cope with cuts in forces, reduced modernization programs, tight budgets, and the loss of skilled personnel. Furthermore, in the last decade, many private sector corporations have also undergone radical reengineering, which has often meant massive reductions in personnel.
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The RDEC should have a framework and methodology in place for measuring quality, measurable objectives for improvements in work processes, measurements for optimizing RD&E processes to deliver value, teams on one project teaching teams assigned to other projects, an organizational climate conducive to organizational learning, and methodologies to measure and evaluate organizational learning. Of course, all of these must be implemented and backed by the entire RDEC organization, from top management down and across all the directorates.
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at the RDEC and replace it with science and technology units distributed among the commodity directorates. The committee favors the first option, primarily because it would concentrate the research talent of the RDEC in one organization, but only if the refocused organization could guarantee requisite support.
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Although the committee favors the formation of a consolidated science and technology unit, the committee does not mean this preference to be determinative on the RDEC management. If after due consideration the director of the RDEC decides that consolidation of the RDEC's science and technology activities can not overcome the problems associated with the current STD, the STD should be broken up and its functions distributed to the commodity directorates.
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ASCD, through its several divisions, was chartered to provide a variety of support services to the other directorates in the Natick RDEC. These services include customer liaison, strategic planning, and quantitative assistance for evaluations and decision making.
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. It is hard to overestimate the benefits to the Natick RDEC of a greatly improved capability to model relevant technologies and simulate the soldier system.
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As pressures on the U.S. defense establishment to cut back persist in the years ahead, budget shortfalls at the Natick RDEC are likely to get worse.
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The committee recognizes that government operations like the Natick RDEC are limited in what they can do to reduce inefficiencies. Nevertheless, the RDEC has already streamlined organizational structures within the commodity directorates and appointed vigorous leaders.
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have to be adjusted to improve the RDEC's support of the Army and other customers. The committee was told that the core technologies of the RDEC are textile technology, food science, biotechnology, and airdrop technology; the list of underlying technologies included these core technologies, as well as survival technology, materials science, environmental research, and behavioral science (Brandler, 1996~.
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The committee does not mean to suggest that the Natick RDEC is unaware of these organizations or is not coordinating its work with them. However, better collaboration with these organizations might result in more support, which could allow the Natick RDEC to concentrate its scarce resources on Natick-unique capabilities.
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The phrase worid-cIass has been used as a description of excellence for all R&D in the DOD. The Natick RDEC is the first DOD agency, in the committee's knowledge, to bring concrete meaning to that phrase by sponsoring the committee's studies to define worId-cIass performance and by submitting itself to an assessment of its own performance.
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The Natick RDEC should implement a five-step reengineering plan: (~) improve the Strategic Vision pillar to good, reverse the downward trend of the Resources and Capabilities pillar, and upgrade the Quality Focus pillar; (2)
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in the committee's opinion, many of the problems associated with strategic vision, resources and capabilities, quality focus, and the two support directorates of the Natick RDEC stem from management limitations at the senior level. The committee does not intend to sound simplistic by throwing all of the problems at management and recommending that management fix them.
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