DAU Brings Digital Engineering/Digital Acquisition to Workforce
Digital Engineering/Digital Acquisition (DE/DA) are major areas of interest for the Department of Defense (DoD). The Under Secretary of Defense for Research Engineering declared that “Digital engineering must be the normal way to design and develop weapon systems.”
“Global competition is a primary driving factor” for DoD, explained Brian Kozola, DAU professor of digital engineering. “We will lose our edge if we do not transition to more efficient and effective ways of doing business. This is even more critical as our system complexity increases and our systems are networked and interconnected across the joint enterprise.” DoD must embrace and expand the use of DE/DA to accelerate all aspects of the acquisition process.
Defining DE/DA
DE is “An integrated digital approach that uses authoritative sources of systems' data and models as a continuum across disciplines to support lifecycle activities from concept through disposal.” DE is explored more thoroughly in DoD Instruction (DoDI), 5000.97, Digital Engineering. This DoDI assigns DAU responsibility for improving and expanding DE training to the workforce.
DE/DA seeks to advance modeling and simulation to improve outcomes of government acquisition. Perhaps one of the earliest approaches to digital acquisition was outlined in former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Will Roper’s 2020 U.S. Air Force report, and since then, DoD has worked to find new ways to integrate DA throughout. Since 2020, the concepts have remained the same: not just building better systems but building systems better and quicker.
By 2023 and 2024, the existing resources for DE/DA were spread across DoD. DAU stepped in to unify these resources and make them available to acquisition workforce students. Digital processes won’t replace all real-world testing, but DoD can find ways to leverage DE and DA to accelerate acquisition and determine which programs may benefit from DE/DA.
“DAU's efforts are to develop training resources that are right-sized, ranging from courses and workshops to short, guided projects,” Kozola said. These resources will be easily accessible for the workforce and provide the large-scale training required for DoD to make this digital transition.
“The DA approach will affect all functional areas, not just engineers,” Kozola said. The entire workforce will benefit from learning more about concepts and becoming comfortable working in the digital environment. “Technical experts will do the heavy lifting of model creation, but the entire workforce will need to understand how to access, manage and update data as well as how to use digital models and methods for communication.” One example of this evolution is moving technical reviews from static, PowerPoint style slides to model-based reviews.
Available Resources
“DAU recognized the huge gap in available training resources in the area of Digital Acquisition and Digital Engineering and DoD’s Defense Acquisition System or processes,” Kozola said. “DoD has been relying on contractor subject-matter experts in digital engineering, and our training will provide government parity in these areas so that we can effectively manage programs and deliver capabilities more efficiently.”
Effectively using DE/DA requires DoD to train personnel, establish processes, and expand the digital ecosystem and tools. There are a variety of options available to DoD, including using the prime contractor’s existing ecosystems, leasing access to another service’s ecosystem or creating a new ecosystem.
DAU’s objective is to train the entire workforce to understand how to incorporate digital and model-based approaches into the acquisition process. DAU’s training will fill the gap left by existing commercial training, which does not cover how the tools and methods are integrated into the Defense acquisition process, Kozola explained.
“Existing DoD resources are fragmented and spread between services and organizations and do not cover the full spectrum of training that the workforce needs,” he said. “DAU is focusing on Digital Acquisition training to consolidate training and fill in the missing gaps that are needs for the DoD to effectively leverage these principles.”
DAU deployed a digital acquisition environment based on virtual machines that allows students to access fictional model-based systems, systems engineering tools and training from their browsers.
DAU showcased these efforts to stakeholders, students and other DE professionals at the 2024 Digital Engineering for Defense Summit. DAU’s robust training portfolio “addresses speed, agility, efficiency and capability to compete in the global threat environment,” Kozola explained. “This is a catalyst for DoD to effectively transition to using digital approaches by training the workforce in principles and tools.”
- Digital Acquisition Playlists (requires user logged in to the Virtual Campus)
- Workshops:
- SysML Immersion, Part 1
- SysML Immersion, Part 2
- Digital Acquisition Modeling
- Learn more about DAU Mission Assistance for specific support on your DE/DA needs.
- Courses:
- Credentials
Matthew Sablan