AMMAN, Jordan — US Special Operations Command is trying to break down barriers in the acquisition process through a collaborative exchange it calls SOFWERX.
The program is in its infancy, having started just six months ago, but already the collaboration between SOCOM, industry and academia is taking off running, SOCOM’s acquisition chief James “Hondo” Geurts told Defense News at SOFEX, a special operations exhibition.
“I want everything,” Geurts said. “I think part of our challenge in special operations is we have such a wide-ranging and dynamic set of requirements.”
What special operations really needs, he said, is a broad network of suppliers, collaborators and users. SOFWERX is intended to break down barriers between the normally gnarly defense acquisition process and industry from the big kahunas to the small fish.
“My biggest fear is that there is an innovation or a technology or an idea out there that can’t get to me because of bureaucracy or because they don’t know how to get to us,” Geurts said. “A lot of what we are trying to do is create processes and venues to make it very easy for ideas, technologies, individuals to come collaborate with us.”
SOFWERX is not only a program, it’s a place near Tampa Bay, Florida, outside of military base walls to foster easier access.
This means any person with a piece of technology can walk straight through the front door, then “we can assess it, we’ve got operators from across all our different units that are out there continuously evaluating technology,” Geurts said.
Granting easy access, according to Geurts, can also reduce costs associated with normal acquisition and technology development.
The program plays on a few of SOCOM’s strengths. One is that special operations forces by nature are “very networked” and SOFWERX creates a network of collaborators. The second strength is SOCOM’s already very agile and rapid acquisition process.
SOFWERX has held about 70 collaborative events. For instance, the program holds rapid prototyping sessions where a group gets together to mull over a particular problem for a couple of days to figure out how to move state-of-the-art capability forward to solve the problem.
And once a month, SOFWERX holds capability collaboration sessions. For example, Geurts said, a session last month focused on small sensors for small UAVs. The program brought in operators, technical experts, acquisition officials, industry representatives and academia to work on new ideas. If something warrants a prototype, “we will go prototype it.”
And SOFWERX is equipped with 3-D printers and other tools to quickly get the job done in-house.
“It’s been unbelievable what we found in the power of getting diverse folks together looking at problems,” Geurts said.
A few things SOFWERX is gearing up to take a look at in the near future is “sense and sight exploitation.” Geurts explained better capability would prevent casualties as special forces are often the first through the door. Having a better understanding in that moment would help in reaction times and ultimately save lives.
“How do we quickly assess all of the information inside the site, understand what that is, process all of that,” Geurts said. “That will go across the whole spectrum of activities.”
The program is also tackling how to use technology to simplify operations and activities versus making them more complex. “We have a habit sometimes of solving everything with the highest technology solution, and I tend to want the most useful technology, not the highest technology necessarily,” Geurts said.
Technology that is easier to train and use is something special forces from other countries would like to have as well at a time when it’s increasingly necessary that US partners and allies link up special operators in a “transregional” approach, as Gen. Raymond Thomas, US Special Operations Command commander, called it Monday at the Middle East Special Operations Commanders (MESOC) conference here.
Geurts said Jordan's special operations forces (SOF) are also very interested in technology that helps them remain interoperable with US SOF.
“Most of our challenges are not unilateral, single nation challenges," he said. "They are global, multinational challenges and SOF is a very small group and interoperability is key.”
SOFWERX is also integrating programs already in SOCOM’s acquisition pipeline such as its Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) program.
The program started three years ago when SOCOM decided to take a brand-new look at protecting the operator at the most vulnerable point in the mission, Geurts said.
“What we wanted to do was rethink completely: How do we protect the operator?" he said. "And some of that is armor, but it’s more than just armor, it’s situational awareness, it’s communication, it’s visual systems.”
SOCOM didn’t hire a prime contractor but decided to be the lead integrator for the program and do everything in-house, according to Geurts, while using a wide array of industrial partners for help.
“That has given us a great flexibility to bring in new technology as well as spin technologies out,” he noted.
The most recent prototype delivered about six or seven months ago, Geurts said, looks at different ways to mechanize an exoskeleton.
With two years left on the program, “we are hoping at the end we will have a kind of functioning prototype, and we will do some evaluations in that and decide what we want to transition further and what we want to keep working on,” Geurts said. “The benefits we are getting both in terms of technologies we've been able to send directly to the field as well as new and rapid acquisition processes we've pioneered have been a great benefit to the entire force."
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