Army Targets 2028-2029 for Digital Engineering Ecosystem

The Army plans to launch a digital engineering ecosystem within the next two to three years, Assistant Deputy for Acquisition and Systems Management for Data, Engineering and Software Rocio Bauer said Tuesday.

Bauer said at the Carahsoft DevSecOps Conference in Reston, Virginia, that all acquisition programs are moving to a digital environment that integrates requirements modularly.

“We’re looking to really get to ‘nirvana’ within the next two to three years. We’ll have a digital ecosystem that gets applied across the entire acquisition programs,” said Bauer. “It’s also going to be integrated with the requirements and logistics so you get that true digital thread throughout the entire ecosystem.”

The Army released an RFI last week seeking ways to alleviate vendor lock-in, reduce redundant licensing agreements and other issues related to finalizing this digital engineering ecosystem.

Bauer shared on social media last month the completion of phase one of the effort, which gathered engineering data from the Army’s top programs.

Bauer added Tuesday that after the Army began its digital transformation journey to modernize software with DevSecOps, it became clear that the continuous delivery aspect could apply across the enterprise.

Army Acting CIO Gabe Chiulli shared earlier at the same event that the service will launch a new commercial-facing DevSecOps platform to streamline how industry partners submit code and software products for military accreditation.

“DevSecOps is digitizing the entire acquisition lifecycle. Our intent is to make sure that our soldiers and our warfighters have the latest and greatest commercial, innovative technology in the field faster than we’ve ever done it before,” said Bauer.

The office is building out the digital infrastructure by moving away from document-heavy processes and turning to an “as-a-code” approach. Bauer said turning documents into machine-readable data and code is a part of its modular open systems approach (MOSA) to speed up procurement processes while maintaining strong cybersecurity.

“Once we truly start moving where we’re not document heavy … we can start embedding the security in that DevSecOps pipeline,” said Bauer. “Now you’re getting into this rhythm of continuously monitoring and securing what that acquisition process looks like.”

Bauer said adopting a modular approach is key to increasing efficiencies and reducing costs. By switching out components of the system, rather than the entire system, the service can test, validate and certify a specific component.

“You don’t have to do the [authorization to operate] on the whole enterprise. It’s very efficient, and that’s what’s going to get the technology out to field to adapt to the adversary,” said Bauer.