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TITLE VIII--ACQUISITION POLICY, ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT, AND RELATED MATTERS

Subtitle D—Provisions Relating to Major Defense Acquisition Programs

P. L. 114-

House Conference Report. 114-840

(1) Close air support.

(2) Air defense and offensive and defensive counter-air.

(3) Interdiction.

(4) Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

(5) Any other overlapping mission area of significance, as jointly designated by the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for purposes of this subsection.

(c) Qualifications.—Mission integration management activities shall be performed by qualified personnel from the acquisition and operational communities.

(d) Responsibilities.—The mission integration management activities for a mission area under this section shall include—

(1) development of technical infrastructure for engineering, analysis, and test, including data, modeling, analytic tools, and simulations;

(2) the conduct of tests, demonstrations, exercises, and focused experiments for compelling challenges and opportunities;

(3) overseeing the implementation of section 2446c of title 10, United States Code;

(4) sponsoring and overseeing research on and development of (including tests and demonstrations) automated tools for composing systems of systems on demand;

(5) developing mission-based inputs for the requirements process, assessment of concepts, prototypes, design options, budgeting and resource allocation, and program and portfolio management; and

(6) coordinating with commanders of the combatant commands on the development of concepts of operation and operational plans.

(e) Scope.—The mission integration management activities for a mission area under this subsection shall extend to the supporting elements for the mission area, such as communications, command and control, electronic warfare, and intelligence.

(f) Funding.—There is authorized to be made available annually such amounts as the Secretary of Defense determines appropriate from the Rapid Prototyping Fund established under section 804(d) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (Public Law 114–92; 10 U.S.C. 2302 note) for mission integration management activities listed in subsection (d).

(g) Strategy.—The Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees, at the same time as the budget for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2018 is submitted to Congress pursuant to section 1105 of title 31, United States Code, a strategy for mission integration management, including a resourcing strategy for mission integration managers to carry out the responsibilities specified in this section.

The Senate bill contained a provision (sec. 843) that would further enhance the Department of Defense’s (DOD) efforts to adopt an open systems approach to defense acquisition. The provision would require the Secretary of Defense to implement modular open systems architecture in acquisition programs in specified mission areas when implementing section 801 of the Carl Levin and Howard P. “Buck” McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 (Public Law 113–291). The provision would require each multi-service and multi-program mission outlined in the provision to have a mission integration manager to act as the principal substantive advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for all aspects of capability integration for the mission area.

The House amendment contained no similar provision.

The House recedes with an amendment that would incorporate into another section of this Act the requirement of the Senate provision (sec. 843) for the Department to ensure that external facing interfaces are identified and clearly and publicly characterized in terms of form, function, and the content that flows across to enable the creation of interoperable “systems of systems.” The conferees urge the Department to ensure that the standards bodies and processes, which are established to support modular open systems approaches, promote interfaces that are dynamically managed, flexible, and extensible to enable technological innovation and performance growth. The amendment also would modify the Senate provision to provide flexibility to the Department of Defense in implementing mission integration activities, and to provide an alternative funding source for mission integration activities. The conferees urge the Department of Defense to propose its own funding mechanism in future budget requests.