FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau’s new strategy for combating cyber threats will include providing intelligence to the Department of Defense (DoD) and other agencies in support of their offensive cyber operations, Nextgov reported Thursday.

“An important part of fighting back against our foreign adversaries in the cyber realm is offense as well as defense,” Wray said Thursday during a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing. “That’s a big part of this new FBI strategy that I rolled out.”

On Sept. 16th, Wray announced at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Summit the new FBI strategy that would “impose risk and consequences on cyber adversaries.” He cited the importance of cyber offensive operations in fighting threats during the Senate panel hearing.

“Sometimes, the way to maximize impact is through law enforcement action that we would take, sometimes it’s through sanctions,” Wray said. “But sometimes it’s through offensive cyber operations, and we are very focused on making sure that intelligence and information that we develop through our investigative work is shared with our partners to enable their operations offensively, so through our national cyber investigative joint task force we’re much more effective in partnering with the relevant [intelligence community] and DOD agencies on that.” 

The Department of Defense is expected to call for the U.S. Navy to expand its fleet to more than 500 ships, Defense News reported Thursday.

Supporting documents to the upcoming Future Navy Force Study obtained by the publication show suggestions for the service to have a fleet of between 480 and 534 unmanned and manned ships, reflecting a 35 percent increase in combat vessels from the targeted fleet size of 355 ships by 2030.

According to an April draft of feedback on the forthcoming study conducted by the office of the secretary of defense, the notional fleets designed by two commissioned groups will have an expanded logistics force, more unmanned submarines and ships and small surface combatants but fewer large surface combatants and aircraft carriers. 

“The Future Naval Force Study is a collaborative OSD, Joint Staff and Department of the Navy effort to assess future naval force structure options and inform future naval force structure decisions and the 30-year shipbuilding plan,” said Lt. Tim Pietrack, a spokesman for the Navy. “Although COVID-19 has delayed some portions of the study, the effort remains on track to be complete in late 2020 and provide analytic insights in time to inform Program Budget Review 22.”

Join Potomac Officers Club’s 2020 Navy Forum to hear notable industry and federal leaders discuss the initiatives, efficiencies and challenges the service branch faces as well as how to join together to improve the future of warfare. 

The Department of Energy (DOE) has launched a solicitation for projects to mature and commercialize technologies under the DOE fiscal 2021 Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF). DOE said Wednesday its TCF program aims to further develop laboratory-made energy technologies then eventually transition them into the commercial sector.

The opportunity is open to DOE laboratories and organizations interested in partnering with commercial companies for the technology transition effort.

“We are always looking for new and updated models to streamline the tech-to-market process, and we’ve found that when both partners have some skin in the game, the outcomes can be truly incredible,” said Conner Prochaska, chief commercialization officer at DOE.

Interested parties may submit applications through Dec. 15. The department plans to announce selections in spring of next year.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has commenced an effort to update a weather forecasting system used by the National Weather Service (NWS).

NOAA said Wednesday its Global Ensemble Forecast System now features a Finite-Volume Cubed-Sphere or FV3 core that increases individual forecast input from 21 to 31 and boosts resolution, allowing for more accurate, detailed forecasts.

The agency also plans to boost the system's forecast length to 35 days, a difference of over twice the original number.

GEFS' new update allows NWS to provide numerical weather forecasts up to four weeks earlier. The service uses GEFS to forecast on hurricanes, extreme temperature changes and other significant weather events.

“This significant upgrade to GEFS – the first of its kind in five years – will improve probabilistic weather model guidance for public safety, quality of life and business decisions that drive U.S. economic growth,” said Neil Jacobs who serves as NOAA's administrator on an acting basis.

SAP SE has announced that Terumo Americas Holding (TAH) has integrated SAP S/4HANA and several other solutions across multiple sites, as part of a digital transformation initiative to assist with healthcare operations.

"SAP S/4HANA is the foundation of our company's digital transformation and part of our overall strategy and commitment to better serve our customers across the globe," said Hiroshi Nagumo, president and CEO of TAH. "Integrating vital business processes on one common platform means greater efficiencies, allowing us to continue bringing physicians and their patients the highest quality products and services as we grow."

TAH implemented has SAP offerings including SAP S/4HANA, the SAP Master Data Governance application, SAP Ariba solutions, the SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain solution, the SAP Extended Warehouse Management application, SAP SuccessFactors solutions and SAP Concur solutions running on SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. 

SAP HANA is a high-performance in-memory database that accelerates data-driven, real-time decision-making and actions and supports all workloads with the broadest advanced analytics on multi-model data, on premise and in the cloud.

The database management system has helped companies develop intelligent and live solutions for quick decision-making on a single data copy. With advanced analytics, the software can support next-generation transactional processing.

The adoption will support future growth as part of Terumo's global IT initiative. TAH has combined remote and socially distanced in-person activities, since leveraging SAP’s offerings.  TAH's implementation was required to meet the industry's stringent regulatory compliance mandates.

With SAP, TAH will gain greater efficiency and a scalable order-to-delivery process. The company's healthcare customers have improved visibility into their orders, from initial acknowledgement through tracking notifications and delivery. TAH can also virtually manage its in-hospital product inventories more effectively, ensuring customers receive devices when needed.

"SAP is a great partner for our digital journey, effectively collaborating with our teams and other important partners to bring our business into a single source of truth," said Rick Larrieu, vice president of Global IT Applications and Infrastructure at TAH. "With these investments, we can better serve our customers and their patients, while increasing our operational efficiency."

Unanet has reported significant customer growth in the first-half of the year due to investments in new software enhancements for its government contractor (GovCon) and architecture and engineering (A/E) customer bases, increased brand awareness and the company's commitment to industry-leading customer support.

"When we go head-to-head with the biggest names in ERP, we win the vast majority of the time because of our commitment to customers, our superior product, and our knowledgeable staff," said Craig Halliday, CEO of Unanet. "We continue to delight them with enhancements to our purpose-built software, and more importantly, a commitment to our people-first customer service."

Unanet has expanded its customers by 56 percent over the previous quarter, and has won major awards, such as A/E firm Mesa Associates. Unanet has also been recognized as a high performer in dozens of categories for its A/E and GovCon solutions in G2's Fall Report 2020. 

In 2020, Unanet has made significant investments in its marquee product lines, including analytics tools for its GovCon customers that seamlessly integrate into existing ERP data for predictive modeling, specialized reporting and better clarity on how to manage resources including cash flow, revenue and costs.

The company has also acquired Clearview Software, which has been integrated into Unanet's product suite. With the purchase, Unanet has expanded CRM to help customers improve sales tracking and nurture their customer relationships, while managing job costs and tracking the entire lifecycle of a project on any device.

In addition, Unanet has hired new executive talent, including a chief product officer, chief customer officer, chief sales officer and chief marketing officer, which has driven Unanet's increased brand awareness, innovation and customer-first approach to the market.

"Our focus on delivering value for our customers is paying off, and we have every reason to believe our customers will reward us with continued growth through the rest of the year, allowing us to welcome even more new customers to our family," continued Halliday.