The Naval Surface Warfare Center: World-Class Scientists, Engineers, and Facilities for the Current Navy, the Next Navy, and the Navy After Next - Available To The Fleet - Brief Article

Program Manager, Sept-Oct, 2001 by Rear Adm. Mike Mathis

What is the Naval Surface Warfare Center? Why does the Department of the (DoN) have a Surface Warfare Center, or other Warfare Centers for that matter? What do they do, why do they do it, and how do they do it?

The DoN technical community drawn mainly from the ranks of the former laboratories and Systems Commands' field activities -- now merged into Warfare Centers -- is not well understood by many in the DoN. In fact, if you should ask many program managers to whom Warfare Centers provide assistance in acquisition matters; or Fleet units whose ships, aircraft, submarines, and command and control systems the Warfare Centers support, they will tell you they cannot exist without the technical capabilities Warfare Centers provide.

Unlike most operational and headquarters components in the Department of the Navy Warfare Centers are technically focused and are funded through a Working Capital Fund. Partially for these reasons, they remain an enigma to many parts of the Department.

This article will attempt to reduce some of the mystery surrounding the DoN Warfare Centers by introducing you to the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC). It will explain why NSWC exists and how it does business and discuss the Center leadership's innovative business thinking -- an approach to managing the Center that has helped NSWC remain viable and available to the Fleet through a decade of dramatic cutbacks in defense spending.

Why Does NSWC Exist?

The policy of our country is to rely on the private sector to supply the Navy and Marine Corps and all armed forces with the systems they need to carry out their missions. The DoN, however, must be able to state what it needs in technical terms that the private sector can develop and build. The DoN must also be able to determine where to seek such capabilities from the private sector: in other words, it must know the technical turf of private industry In today's era of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) technology, this is especially true. Moreover, given the competitive nature of the private sector, the DoN must be technically competent to know when a proper solution has been proposed or built by the private sector. That is not to say that the private sector does not have the best interests of the DoN at heart, but the private sector's principal customers and the DoN's principal customers are different: the former are stockholders, and the latter are the men and women of our fighting forces and the taxpayers of the United States.

The DoN needs interoperability in its systems, not only within the same fighting units (ships or aircraft, for example), but also among these units. Interoperability extends beyond the DoN to the Joint arena, and ultimately to allied and coalition forces. All this requires a strong technical community within the DoN, possessing not only knowledge of the systems themselves, but also the interactions among these systems. For this reason, we see a principal focus on systems within NSWC.

Hence, the DoN has Warfare Centers that exist to:

* Understand the technical dimensions of Naval problems.

* Be a technical peer of the private sector to enable the DoN to: 1) know where to go for solutions to these problems; and 2) know when a competent solution has been provided, including the ability to certify systems safe and effective.

* Be prepared to do what industry: 1) will not do because the work is not profitable (the primary objective of the private sector); 2) cannot do because the work requires extremely expensive or unique facilities; and 3) should not do because they are not prepared to accept the subsequent liability (for example, certifying systems safe and effective).

NSWC does all the preceding in support of five mission-related Product Areas: Ships and Ship Systems, Surface Ship Combat Systems, Navy Strategic Weapon Systems, Littoral Warfare Systems, and Ordnance. The Center's broad focus spans the cradle-to-grave life cycle of programs, systems, equipment, and materials. In short, NSWC supports the current Navy, the next Navy, and the Navy after next.

The aggregate of the work performed across NSWC: provides the intellectual basis and facilities to enable NSWC to carry out its reason for being; provides an economic base to achieve the economies of scale to perform such work at competitive rates; and provides a technical foundation and stewardship of an "intellectual insurance policy" while various acquisition reform initiatives are being tested out, such as Full Service Contracting, Performance Specifications, and COTS. This is especially important given the potential implications of some of these policies to interoperability.

Sustaining an In-House Capability

How does NSWC develop and sustain the breadth and depth of capabilities to meet the expectations of the Department of the Navy? Over the years, the Center has found that the most effective way to do this is to perform hands-on technical work. Reading about developing and sustaining capabilities, learning about it in the classroom, or watching (overseeing) others is insufficient to develop and sustain such capabilities while simultaneously anticipating those needed by the DoN in the future. Hence, NSWC performs technical work for the acquisition community - the Fleet.