Rear Adm. Christian Becker, commander of the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, said that “great communication” with industry and new other transaction authority approaches helped the service speed up acquisition efforts, C4ISRnet reported Saturday.
Becker told the publication that the U.S. Navy recently established an information warfare research project OTA consortium that resulted in 41 prototype awards worth over $52 million. He added that 60 percent of awards issued through the consortium represented nontraditional contractors.
According to Becker, the development of capabilities in a cloud environment is a priority for his office as he seeks to lead the modernization of Navy information warfare operations. He noted that the service’s efforts to transition its enterprise resource planning tool to the cloud required a lot of commitment and preparation.
“A lesson to take away from the experience with ERP [is] that when you get your applications cloud ready, then you can move there and start to achieve those benefits of operating in this flexible architecture," he said.
Becker added that the Navy is working on improving machine learning capabilities in its carrier strike fleet and modernizing cybersecurity platforms for the Combined Afloat Network Enterprise Services program.
