A team of U.S. Air Force acquisition staffers recommended measures for the military service to improve the coordination between its aircraft platforms and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency information systems.

The Advanced Tactical Acquisition Corps found an interface issue between Air Force and NGA platforms is partly due to a configuration data management deficiency, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center said Saturday.

“We developed a total of seven recommendations that improve the processes, tools, and resources for intelligence supportability in acquisition,” said Capt. Chris Bang, a member of ATAC-Team 12.

“Our desired end-goal is to allow acquisition leaders to make intel-informed decisions and deliver capabilities that provide our warfighters a tactical advantage.”

ATAC-Team 12 proposed recruiting more acquisition intelligence analysts to work at aircraft program offices and maintain a tracking database for geospatial systems.

The group also suggested codifying such positions into the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act and centralizing the GEOINT systems monitoring through a digital database.

Nine civilian and military employees make up the 12th cohort of ATAC, a three-month program that allows service personnel to identify possible approaches for addressing acquisition challenges.

A survey conducted by the Partnership for Public Service and Boston Consulting Group has found that government agencies that assessed how they recruit, hire and retain digital and data workforces got an average maturity score of 28 out of 100 across all six human capital categories and intend to improve their overall score by 39 points in the next five years.

The Federal Data and Digital Maturity Index survey conducted from September 2021 to February 2022 included responses to 20 questions about workforce recruitment and retention from over 100 representatives from six federal agencies as part of the human capital “deep dive,” the Partnership for Public Service said Friday.

Of the six human capital categories, the agencies had the lowest current maturity score in the area of organizational transformation at 25 out of 100 points. This category assesses how thoroughly and frequently employees with digital and data expertise are involved in an agency’s projects.

Agencies reached a maturity score of 30 out of 100 in the leadership and cultural change category, which evaluates how organizations build up the leadership of their data and digital workforce and promote inclusion and diversity.

“These survey results show that agencies across government should focus on building an effective data and digital workforce to modernize their operations, improve decision-making and more effectively serve the public,” the report reads.

Other human capital categories assessed in the survey were people strategy; talent acquisition; people development; and performance, reward and engagement.

The U.S. Army is seeking industry feedback on its draft notice regarding a prototype project opportunity and a statement of need for an enterprise resource planning system to converge five business systems at the military service.

The branch intends to collect input through July 18 and host an industry day to discuss its Enterprise Business System Convergence initiative after the receipt of private sector comments, according to a presolicitation notice posted Tuesday on SAM.gov.

For the project, the Army said it will employ a lead systems integrator using the other transaction authority process for the design, development and demonstration of a prototype ERP platform to consolidate the branch’s General Fund Enterprise Business System, GFEBS-Sensitive Activities, Global Combat Support System-Army, Logistics Modernization Program and Army Enterprise Systems Integration Program Hub.

Army CIO Raj Iyer told reporters in June the service plans to invest $1.4 billion to update legacy business systems across its organization during fiscal year 2023 and the budget covers EBS-C prototyping work.

The U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation program office has conducted a lab integration event to test the ability of the Boeing-built MQ-25 Stingray’s ground control station to control the drone in the carrier environment.

The event was conducted at the program’s System Test and Integration Lab at Pax River where Lockheed Martin’s ground control station controlled Boeing’s Hardware-in-the-Loop system, which uses hardware and software to provide a realistic copy of the aerial refueling aircraft.

The defense contractors provided functional software for the government to enable connectivity between the ground control station and the HITL.

“Bringing multiple systems together is never easy, but the joint government/industry team, coming together, understanding problems and finding solutions made this event successful. We learned how the system works as a whole and that early learning and discovery is key to keep the program moving forward,” said TJ Maday, MQ-25 labs and integration manager.

Naval Air Systems Command plans to simulate a complete flight using the HTIL air vehicle and demonstrate switching connections to the drone and integrate other aircraft hardware and software.