Important Combat Systems Symposium Updates
ASNE has just learned that Department of Defense employees (military and civilian) have been advised to refrain from public engagements during the National Day of Mourning (5 December). Accordingly, all of the government speakers and panelists who were on our Wednesday Day 1 agenda (5 December) have notified us that they will not be able to participate on that day.
In recognition of the government’s direction, and with the greatest respect for our late President George H. W. Bush, we are compelled to cancel CSS Day 1, (Wednesday, 5 December). ASNE will be welcoming individuals who are interested in informal networking on December 5 with lunch (beginning at 1100) and a networking reception (1600-1800). Exhibitor setup will be open beginning at 1000 on December 5.
We will go forward with Day 2 of CSS (Thursday, 6 December) with keynotes by both The Honorable Thomas Modly; Under Secretary of the Navy and VADM Mike Moran, USN; Principal Military Deputy, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition). For the latest version of the agenda as it evolves, please refer to: http://www.navalengineers.org/Symposia/Combat-Systems-Symposium-2018 .
We appreciate your understanding during this solemn time. We look forward to your attendance.
December 5 – 6, 2018
Theme: Combat Systems: Achieving Agility to Deliver Lethality and Maximize Readiness
Location: Sheraton Pentagon City Hotel at 900 S Orme St, Arlington, VA
“Therefore, we must advance agility when we think about, and build, our future force structure. We need more ships and aircraft and vehicles, but that equipment must provide flexibility, adaptability, faster development cycles, reduced maintenance requirements, greater lethality, and an industrial strategy that sustains a modern, flexible and sustainable industrial base.” – Hon. Thomas Modly, Undersecretary of the Navy
Given the increasing complexity of the competitive geostrategic landscape, the National Defense Strategy’s mandate for how we construct our naval forces must address a broad range of competing challenges:
- A return to great power competition, but not to the exclusion of other threats.
- An emphasis on lethality and readiness, but not to the exclusion of new platforms and technologies for the future fight.
- A recognition that we must advance our nation’s interest and influence on the seas, but not to the exclusion of building alliances and partnerships that seek peaceful conflict resolution, with preparedness for the use of decisive force if necessary.
To overcome the challenges the U.S. Navy must first and foremost obtain and master AGILITY. The 2018 ASNE Combat Systems Symposium two day symposium will showcase Navy Leaderships, Engineers and Industry Leaders who will address, discuss, and debate the following qualities of Agility and how they play in furthering our ability to design, develop, and deploy Combat Systems to deliver lethality, maximize readiness and address future threats:
- Velocity: this speaks not only to how fast our weapons can fly, or how quickly we can move forces from place to place, it has much more importance with respect to how it characterizes our processes and decision-making.
- Adaptability: foster flexibility in our people, design and construct both adaptable platforms and force deployment models, and ensure that both people and platforms are enabled by flexible business and operational processes.
- Collaboration: openness, communication, fairness, compassion, intensity, and commitment if there is any hope of impacting culture in a positive way that enhances overall agility and fosters a greater enterprise appreciation of the organizational strategy, and encourages greater enterprise focused solutions; a critical cultural characteristic will also help us improve our ability to work with allies and partners around the world.
- Visibility: the proliferation of platforms with sensors, and our ability to integrate and understand all of the data they produce, will be critical to the success of the future warfighting mission; but all this data has to make sense, and we must figure out how best to exploit visibility to the right level and at the right time so that we increase lethality and our ability to defend ourselves.
- Innovation: Agile organizations are adept and comfortable with trying new things–with experimenting, failing, measuring, trying again–all with a view towards finding new solutions to current and anticipated problems.
We must achieve agility to deliver lethality, maximize readiness and address future threats. In designing, building, deploying, and modernizing Combat Systems, the need for agile systems and processes for development and sustainment are essential to our success.