§3602 Middle tier of acquisition for rapid prototyping and rapid fielding

Summary

Create two faster ways to buy and field military gear that finish in two to five years. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, after talking with the Defense Comptroller and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, must set up a rapid prototyping path and a rapid fielding path. The rapid prototyping path uses new technologies to make and test fieldable prototypes, with the goal of a usable prototype and some operational capability within five years. The rapid fielding path uses proven technologies to start production within six months and finish fielding within five years. Programs using these paths do not have to follow the usual long requirements and acquisition rules (for example, the JCIDS manual and DoD Directive 5000.01). The Under Secretary must also make a faster, coordinated process for requirements, budgets, and buying that approves a requirement within six months of starting. That process must include merit-based selection of new or proven tech to meet needs from the Joint Chiefs and combatant commanders, quick funding and acquisition plans, real-world testing of prototypes, steps to move successful prototypes into production, attention to life-cycle costs, logistics, and interoperability, and ways to cut total ownership cost. The rules may let a service pick an experienced program manager with a small technical team, allow that manager to balance cost, schedule, and requirements, give decision authority to service acquisition leaders, permit fast waivers of regulations (or requests to Congress for law waivers), and allow repeated five-year cycles of prototyping and fielding.