Enhancing Army S&T - Vol. II: The Future (Paperback)

The Army team at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy has been doing technology studies for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology since 2003. In 2007 we published Enhancing Army S&T: Lessons Learned From Project Hindsight Revisited, which we refer to here as Vo l. I. That publication was a summary of critical technology contributions to the development of four successful Army warfighting systems. Since then, we have completed a number of studies of important aspects of the Army science and technology (S&T) program with an emphasis on the Army laboratories. In the present paper, Vol. II, we integrate the findings of these studies and make recommendations after each chapter, as well as in a separate final chapter. Chapter I of this volume is an introduction, and Chapter II offers an updated view of the work discussed in Vol. I with an emphasis on the relative roles played by the Army laboratories and the contractors that manufactured the systems. The close collaboration between the two groups was judged by us to be the key to the successful outcomes. Both the Army laboratories and the technical personnel at the contractors were essential-without either group the work would have cost more, taken more time, and might well have failed. We believe the collaboration was the result of the efforts of the mid-level managers who pressed technologists to work together. In Chapter III, we discuss the impact of the lack of publicity given to the Army laboratories' work. This lack of publicity has caused some observers to conclude that the laboratories are not significant contributors to the warfighters. This belief in turn has produced recommendations from outside the military to close the laboratories and assign the research to the private sector. We do not agree with the criticism or the recommendation. We discuss two aspects of addressing this problem: the need to maintain high-quality work and the need to provide detailed information about the contributions of the laboratories to all parties concerned-namely, Army senior leadership, officials in the Department of Defense (DOD), the Administration, the Congress, and the general public. Chapter IV explores the laboratory quality question. We begin by asserting that the most important asset of a laboratory is its technical staff members and that, therefore, ensuring staff quality should be a top priority of management. We discuss a number of methods for locating and bringing new employees onboard, including use of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA), post-doctoral appointments, and visiting scientists and engineers. Chapter V discusses two reports we issued on the role of technology in stabilization and reconstruction. We surveyed the experiences of recently returned soldiers from Iraq. More recently we have conducted Gedanken Experiments at Fort Bennning to explore, with experienced soldiers, various challenges facing the laboratory programs. These experiments brought together a number of officers and senior non-commissioned officers in combination with Army scientists and engineers and observers from ASAALT and other Army organizations. The participants have been enthusiastic about the experience and are urging that more such experiments be carried out. In Chapter VI we recommend that the Army laboratories be managed as the important component of developing new capabilities for warfighters that they are. The Army should emphasize reporting relationships and the role of ASAALT in developing policy affecting the laboratories.