The Joint Program Executive Officer Joint Tactical Radio System (JPEO JTRS) outlines an incremental approach to build software-programmable radios that will transform communication capabilities for troops on the ground, sea and in the air …
Dennis Bauman, JPEO JTRS, has the chartered financial, technical and directive authority to oversee development of JTRS through low rate initial production. He is the only Joint PEO that reports directly to a senior decision-maker in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; Bauman's boss is Ken Krieg, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.
Bauman is using this authority to deliver JTRS communications capabilities to the warfighter at realistic cost, schedule and technical risk.
It should also be noted that Bauman is "dual-hatted." He is the Navy's PEO for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence and Space programs.
Four Goals
"Reloading" JTRS is all about completing four strategic goals Bauman set for the program last spring: (1) Assess the status of the total program; (2) Develop and gain approval for realistic requirements and a budget going forward; (3) Implement an acquisition strategy to achieve the requirements within budget and; (4) Create an enduring "joint" organization that balances Service equities with DoD enterprise needs.
The JPEO's priority was to complete the first two goals in the first year. Appointed JPEO in March 2005, he completed the second goal by mid-March 2006 with a Joint Requirements Oversight Council Memo signed by the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The memo "locks in" — sets — realistic requirements funded in the President's FY 2007 Budget.
Bauman continues to move aggressively to complete the final two goals for the program. Under Secretary Krieg signed direction at the end of March 2006 approving the "Increment 1" development strategy for JTRS. Increment 1 is a significant change to an earlier acquisition strategy plagued by reported "requirements creep." Increment 1 reduces from 32 to 9 the number of waveforms for JTRS radios. It also reduces from 26 to 13 the number of form factors, and reduces the number of channels in some form factors.
"Neither the JPEO nor the DoD has given up on the full set of requirements for JTRS. Increment 1 is what we're going to deliver with the funding in the FY 2007 President's Budget, understanding that there will be subsequent Increments delivered later," Bauman said.
Lastly, Bauman is proposing a governance, or decision-making model, to create and sustain a truly joint organization. The goal is to address individual Service requirements for mobile ad hoc networking with an enterprise approach to acquisition and engineering practices that would enable effective leveraging of efforts across the JTRS product lines.
The governance model is moving forward. Under Secretary Krieg testified to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees April 5, 2006, citing JTRS as the pilot program he will use to streamline the decision-making process for major weapons programs. The February 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report highlighted how the JTRS restructuring exemplified a collaborative approach between the joint warfighter acquisition and resource communities. The Report called for other joint programs to follow this collaborative approach.
Dennis Bauman on "What is JTRS? Why is it important?"
The transformational efforts of DoD's architecture depends on the information infrastructure called the Global Information Grid (GIG). Without a capability like JTRS, the GIG's transformational networking would halt at the command center level, unable to extend to the actual mobile warfighters. Figure 1 illustrates JTRS Increment 1 Network Architecture Overview.
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 JTRS Inc 1 Network Architecture Overview
 Figure 2. JTRS Organizational Structure.
 Table 1. The JTRS Domains. |