14 May 10. The U.S. Department of Defense announced today that it authorized the Army to cancel the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System and transition management responsibilities for system development and acquisition from the old Future Combat System (FCS) program – currently aligned under Program Executive Office Integration (PEO I) – to the PEOs that already manage similar systems. Both decisions are a result of the Capability Portfolio Reviews, a new process the Army implemented in February.
The Army’s vision is to have an effective, affordable and modernized Army. In pursuit of this goal, the Army’s senior leaders recognize the need to be diligent in their efforts to be responsible stewards of the resources provided and to carefully manage existing programs and budgets. With this obligation in mind, the Secretary of the Army directed the Under Secretary of the Army and the Vice Chief of Staff, Army, to implement a Capability Portfolio Review (CPR) process for a one-year period, effective February 22, 2010.
The intent of this review process is to conduct an Army-wide, all-components revalidation of requirements for all Army Acquisition programs. The Army holistically examines all existing requirements and makes recommendations to terminate ones that are redundant and outdated. Reviews will focus on eight portfolios: Tactical Wheeled Vehicles, Precision Fires, Air and Missile Defense, Radios and Network, Aviation, Engineer Mobility, Combat Vehicle Modernization and Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR). The intent of this revalidation is to eliminate redundancies and to ensure that funds are properly programmed, budgeted, and executed against the programs that yield the most value to the Army.
The review process revalidates the requirement in each portfolio using a wide-range of criteria, including: combatant commander requests; wartime lessons learned; the ability to support the Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) model; the potential for leveraging emerging technologies and affordability.
The analysis that has resulted from the Capability Portfolio Reviews conducted to date has clearly highlighted the utility of this new process in building an effective and affordable modernization strategy. The resulting recommendations will continue to assist the Secretary of the Army in establishing future priorities for investment, research, development and acquisition, and life cycle sustainment.
The Capability Portfolio Reviews have yielded two key results to date, including:
1). The Precision Fires portfolio review examined the balance of high-end precision munitions and lower-end near-precision munitions. A detailed analysis of alternatives determined that the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System (NLOS-LS) does not provide a cost-effective precision fire capability. The Army intends to pursue other capabilities to engage a moving target in all-weather conditions in order to fulfill the operational requirement defined for the NLOS-LS. As a result, the Army concluded NLOS-LS is no longer required; the Secretary of the Army recommended cancellation and the undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics approved and authorized the request. Additionally, analysis from the portfolio review concluded a reduction in the number of Excalibur and Accelerated Precision Mortar Initiative rounds was also warranted; the Secretary of the Army also recommended approval of these proposed reductions, which the Department approved as well.
2). In conjunction with the Capability Portfolio Reviews, the Army Acquisition Executive is planning to transition management responsibilities for system development and acquisition from the old FCS program currently aligned under Program Executive Office Integration (PEO I) to the PEOs that already manage similar systems. This realignment will allow the systems t