The U.S. Army had a problem .Since 1981, the Army ‘s Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System ( AFATDS ) has provided control and manipulate functions for the Army, the Marine Corps, and ally militaries — collecting target data from front-line sensors, pairing fire missions with fire support assets, assigning fire missions, and updating forces on the consequence of those missions. The software written to perform all of this exploit, however, started to show its age .
From concept to implementation, it took 15 years to field the beginning translation of AFATDS. Since its initiation, AFATDS underwent 13 separate upgrades, with new code layered upon erstwhile. By 2010, the software behind AFATDS comprised an amalgam of “ 14 or 16 different coding languages, ” explains Jack Gumbert, Leidos Vice President and Mission Support Division Manager. The software got the job done, but the code that made this potential was, itself, a “ voltaic pile of spaghetti ” — expensive to maintain and difficult to upgrade.
This posed a trouble for the Army as it approached a 2020 deadline for fielding a raw translation of AFATDS, dubbed AFATDS V7.0. How could the code be upgraded to provide the “ lapp capability ” as the existing version, but streamlined and “ modernized to a modern software service line ” to facilitate extra upgrades in the future ? How could AFATDS be made “ flexible ” and “ extendible ” to incorporate new weapons systems under development, and stay relevant far into the future ?
The Army reached out to Leidos for the answer .
Solving problems — on a budget
The solution Leidos proposed for the Army, while novel, is one the company had already used to build software for more than a twelve clients in defense mechanism, energy, and healthcare .
This solution, LEAF ( Leidos Enterprise Application Framework ), is a jell of reclaimable software components that allow teams to quickly build and modernize solutions at prices comparable to those of generic, commercial-off-the-shelf products. LEAF provides customers with an agile and custom-make solution at a divide of the price of request software. additionally, Leidos built LEAF in-house with its own internal inquiry and development funds, so LEAF-built software includes no extra license costs for the customer.
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In the casing of AFATDS, Leidos offered to build a displace support system capable of doing all the lapp things the Army ‘s existing AFATDS could do — sensor input and analysis, fire support allotment, and attack analysis — but easier to upgrade and expand to encompass future needs .
As with the existing AFATDS system, the better product would continue to interoperate with more than 80 different battlefield systems — not precisely systems native to the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, but including U.S. Navy and Air Force instruction and control systems, and fire-support systems operated by the german, french, turkish, italian, and other NATO militaries. And because Leidos knew that LEAF could cut software costs by arsenic much as 50 %, it offered to build a new version of AFATDS on a budget .
Meeting the customer where they are
Leidos made big promises, but was more than uncoerced to demonstrate its ability to deliver. Working with the Army from its co-located offices at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Leidos invested respective years in building a prototype AFATDS upgrade for the Army to test. then, after the Army “ kicked the tires, ” Leidos solicited feedback on how to make AFATDS even better .
Leidos incorporated these upgrades into a second base prototype for the Army — before it had tied won a compress, and before asking for any money. Relying entirely on funding from its own internal inquiry and development program, Leidos built a program that met the Army ‘s needs, and then awaited its decisiveness.
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“ We did this, ” says Gumbert, “ because we knew the Army was looking for more than good a software supplier, but for a trust partner and a teammate. ”
By investing its own resources in its customer ‘s success, and checking along the direction to ensure the customer was please with the result, Leidos sought to do two things. First, the development team showed the Army that it could trust Leidos to understand its needs. And second, the team proved that Leidos was in the stick out for the long term. By beginning knead before a contract was even awarded, Leidos demonstrated that it would remain on the undertaking for the long terminus and continue to innovate and improve AFATDS for years to come .
Leidos “ is always going to bring the initiation ” says Gumbert. And in cases like AFATDS, they ’ ll bring the inquiry and development dollars, excessively, keeping costs down – and helping customers achieve their missions .
