(PatrioticPost.com)- The US Army is changing the way it sustains technological equipment in order to improve the maintenance process.
According to Major General Robert Edmonson who leads Communications-Electronics Command, the sustainment community wants to embed itself in the requirements process for new systems in order to get ahead of timelines.
Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) is responsible for sustaining command, control, computers, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems.
Edmonson said they are getting engaged in the Army Requirement Oversight Council and Army capabilities boards to ensure that their capabilities and requirements are codified early so that the Army can “plan appropriately to deliver that capability at the point of need.”
As American forces focused on counterterrorism over the last twenty years, the sustainment of systems was often an afterthought. Early engagement would enable the sustainment community to better prioritize capabilities, Edmonson said.
The decisions are being made under the Army’s new Regionally Aligned Readiness and Modernization Model (ReARMM). Edmonson explained that they have to make deliberate decisions regarding modernizing units within a certain timeframe. So CECOM is targeting their efforts “to program our resources to be much more deliberate and precise in the readiness that we’re providing to units.”
As the Army seeks to improve its sustainment capability, Edmonson said he is challenging CECOM to also examine how it might sustain commercial off-the-shelf equipment differently than it currently does.
Calling network and cybersecurity the two major pillars within the National Security and National Defense strategies, Edmonson said the Tobyhanna Army Depot is improving its organic industrial base to provide world-class support to the Army’s modernization efforts and joint weapons systems.
Edmonson explained that as the Army and other services adopt agile acquisition strategies for network-enabled weapon systems, Tobyhanna Army Depot will remain linked to the program offices. Army Futures Command and Pentagon material developers can then obtain the standardized technical capabilities needed to develop infrastructure investment strategies that will support future, long-term requirements.
