The Defense Department inspector general has released a report that indicates the U.S. Navy needs a comprehensive guidance to evaluate cost performance of the service branch’s large‑scale renewable energy projects.

DoD IG said Thursday it found that Navy personnel failed to release adequate documentation to support the calculations they made in their assessments of three major renewable energy projects within the U.S. Pacific Command‘s area of responsibility, DoD IG said Thursday.

The audited projects are the Solar Multiple Award Contract in Hawaii, Guam Photovoltaic Renewable Energy and West Loch Photovoltaic Power in Hawaii.

The service branch’s current guidance does not have specific procedures for personnel to evaluate such projects, the report noted.

The IG recommended that the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment update  Navy guidance with comprehensive steps and assess the cost‑effectiveness of renewable energy projects based on those policies.

Operations research analysts at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base have developed a scheduling tool that works to help forecast manpower and facilities required to maintain the F-22 Raptor fighter jet.

The U.S. Air Force said Thursday research analysts collaborated with the F-22 Strategic Planning Group to create the Master Plan Scheduling Tool through the use of aircraft maintenance data and a mathematical theory.

Research analyst Greg Gehret said the tool works to align available infrastructure with maintenance skillsets, workload and facility to help meet aircraft maintenance schedules.

Gehret added the scheduling theory behind the tool can be applied to any production line such as F-35 and A-10 aircraft.

Matt Starkey, a scheduler at the F-22 Strategic Planning Group, said the tool helps the 574th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron to analytically forecast depot resource requirements such as facilities, manpower, tooling and materials.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the ideas of reform and innovation has spread in the military, DoD News reported Thursday.

Jim Garamone writes Selva discussed the Defense Department‘s “state of innovation” at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Thursday to collect ideas and knowledge from younger officers, noncommissioned officers and civilian employees.

“Innovation is about tactical, operational and strategic choices within organizations to adopt new ways of doing things … It can make the organization more effective or more efficient, or possibly both,” noted Selva.

Selva added reform and innovation are required to address challenges that the country will face such as activities in China and Russia, as well as Iran and Korea’s alleged interest to possess nuclear systems.

The general noted the military seeks to help personnel with risk assessment efforts in order to mitigate or prevent unacceptable scenarios that involve the death of people or failure of a mission.

Selva added the military constantly looks at the cause of risks in an effort to develop countermeasures against imaginative competitors that might challenge the U.S. as well as its allies and partners.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said national security leaders should evaluate risks and capabilities of the joint force in order to counter threats from state and non-state actors, DoD News reported Tuesday.

Jim Garamone writes Dunford on Tuesday told class 2017 members at the National Defense University in Washington that leaders should also build up and maintain equipment, staff and strategies amid threats posed by Russia, North Korea, China, Iran and violent extremism associated with the Islamic State militant organization.

He also cited the implications of the risk assessments for the joint force, such as the need for the U.S. to integrate all government aspects, allies and partners into strategic plans as well as develop and maintain nuclear and special operations capabilities.

Dunford also discussed how NDU works to develop future national security and military leaders through a one-year joint professional military education program, according to a second report by Garamone.

He said the university seeks to provide the students an opportunity to read, think, write and consider about their profession as well as learn from international students and counterparts from other U.S. civilian agencies.

Dunford also shared his experience at the Army War College in Pennsylvania and urged NDU students to leverage the university’s faculty and staff as they take the year-long course.