The Defense Innovation Board, or DIB, released two studies on scaling innovation in the nontraditional industry and unmanned weapon systems, or UxS, during its board meeting on Monday at the Pentagon.
The Department of Defense said Monday Heidi Shyu, the under secretary of defense for research and engineering and a four-time Wash100 awardee, tasked the reports in September 2024.
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Scaling Nontraditional Defense Innovation
In one of the reports, DIB recommended that the imperatives of focused organizational structure, cultural optimization and dedicated capital be addressed to improve DOD’s ability to leverage the capabilities of nontraditional vendors at scale.
The board has found that DOD still lacks the appropriate culture for doing business with traditional contractors.
To address the issue, DIB offers several recommendations, including training the department’s acquisition workforce on relational contracting; eliminating burdensome, lengthy, or confusing contracting; maintaining clarity on tradeoffs across schedule, performance and cost; and committing to procuring and deploying five to 10 game-changing capabilities inside 2027.
A Pathway to Scaling Unmanned Weapons Systems
In the other study, the board suggested four critical actions to field UxS at scale, such as putting relevant numbers of unmanned systems in the hands of warfighters early and often and picking UxS manufacturing winners and awarding them contractually.
DIB also offered specific recommendations and organized them into five categories: demand signal; funding; DOD structure and processes; supply chain; and acquisition and manufacturing.
To address the funding issue, the board recommends that DOD should work with Congress to agree on a funding mechanism that enables the program manager to act with speed and flexibility to rapidly field unmanned systems; identify and prioritize investment in vendors that meet UxS-critical criteria; and attach clearly defined contractual awards for standout performers at UxS field demonstrations.