The Joint Tactical Radio System: competition in production, open standards, software reuse through a repository and a joint governance structure turn the once struggling program into a winner providing capabilities to warfighters at the tactical edge

CHIPS, April-June, 2008

The Joint Tactical Radio System, the once troubled Defense Department major acquisition program for developing and procuring software-defined radios, has been revitalized through a new business model that not only saves money, but delivers net-centric cutting edge technology into the Global Information Grid (GIG) for warfighters at the tactical edge. JTRS is actually a family of advanced software-based communications that will replace legacy radio equipment throughout the DoD. It will provide safe and secure Internet-like capabilities and networking for voice, text, audio and video.

In early February, Joint Program Executive Officer for the Joint Tactical Radio System Dennis Bauman and Deputy JPEO for JTRS Howard Pace talked to the media in San Diego, Calif., about how the JPEO-JTRS team is turning the program around. The following is Mr. Bauman's initial address to the media followed by media questions. Mr. Bauman's remarks have been edited for brevity.

My message for you today is that JTRS has changed a lot in the last three years. I am going to convince you that it has gone from a troubled program that was near cancellation to a program that's delivering capability today and is on the path to delivering even greater capability in the not too distant future.

First, I would like to talk about the significance of JTRS. We are in a position where we are enjoying tremendous support from the highest levels of DoD and from Congress. The reason is the importance of JTRS to the Department of Defense.

The DoD is on a path to achieve network-centric capability. The network is important to the way we intend to fight in the future. We have the GIG and a satellite network where we can get out to the command post, but without a capability like JTRS, network-centric warfare stops at the command center.

You can't get to the tactical edge without a capability like JTRS. That capability is more than a cell phone network--we don't have cell towers on the field and we can't use BlackBerry technology for many reasons.

We have to do mobile ad hoc networking from the command center or the command vehicle out to the tactical edge. That is the significance of JTRS. That's why Congress and DoD are so interested in it.

The second reason is that the joint force has traditionally had significant interoperability problems between its various components. JTRS will contribute to the solution to that challenge. We are going to do that by using common software across all the boxes, common waveform software, and it will be interoperable.

The third significant thing about JTRS is that we are going to save money for the Department of Defense. I will talk in more detail about the traditional business model that we have been using in the radio world since World War II to develop and procure radios. We are using a significantly different business model that is more competitive and more open.

Fourth, and not as easily recognized, is to know that we have potential warfare challenges with overhead satellite communications. But JTRS does not rely on SATCOM. JTRS provides voice, video, data and battlefield communications when reachback is not possible.

Three years ago we had a loose federation of five ACAT I programs that were run by the services. They were only loosely federated because it was not a joint entity, and there was no single management structure. Congress got involved and said: you ought to revise the management structure.

The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (USD (AT&L)) at the time was Mike Wynne (who is now Secretary of the Air Force). Secretary Wynne wrote a report to Congress that said we are going to fix JTRS; we are going to stand up a centralized program executive office and have all the program managers report to that PEO and have that PEO report to the USD (AT&L).

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That's how JPEO JTRS was born. Secretary Wynne gave me these goals: (1) Deliver the capability that has been promised; (2) Make it a truly joint capability, not service-dominated in any of the parts; and (3) Get us to a more affordable paradigm for acquiring communications and networking in the Department of Defense.

Based on that guidance, we developed and are now taking a unique enterprise approach. By enterprise, I mean we are looking at rolling out a capability that consists of several different form factors, but the same basic capability for the joint enterprise.

The enterprise approach that we are taking has two fundamental aspects to it--short-term and long-term. Let me talk about these two aspects. Three years ago, when the JPEO was stood up, we did an analysis of where we were and found that each one of the five ACAT I programs was delivering everything at once.

The whole capability that was in the 800-page CDD (Capabilities Development Document) was to be delivered at one time in each of the roll out phases, then called clusters. That's a recipe for disaster in a highly technical development world. We turned all of the clusters into increments. We are now taking an incremental approach. As a result, we have defined Increment I which we are building now. That is a significant subset of what was in this 800-page CDD.