Acquisition Reform That Sticks: Why the Defense Market Feels Different This Time

Presented by HII Mission Technologies

Chris Bishop, Chief Growth Officer for HII Mission Technologies, says defense acquisition reform feels different now. The department and industry have talked about reform for decades, but Bishop believes the current environment has changed in a meaningful way. Policy direction, executive action, department guidance, and the threat landscape are all pushing toward the same conclusion: the United States must field solutions faster.

For Bishop, the threat environment is a major reason this moment feels different. Adversaries are moving faster, technology is changing faster, and long development cycles are increasingly misaligned with operational need. The department can no longer afford to spend years defining a requirement, several more years procuring a solution, and then deliver a system based on assumptions that may already be outdated.

That older model created a dangerous lag. Bishop says requirements in the past could take three or four years to develop. Procurement could add several more years. By the time industry delivered, the requirement might be five, six, or seven years old. In a technology cycle where meaningful advances occur every 12 to 18 months, that timeline no longer works.

The shift he sees is from requirements to needs. Instead of telling industry exactly what to build, the department is increasingly explaining the problem it needs solved. That allows industry and commercial providers to bring forward available solutions. It also requires the government to accept some acquisition risk in order to reduce operational risk. An 80% or 85% solution delivered in months may be far more valuable than a perfect solution delivered years later.

Open architecture is central to that approach. Bishop says modular open systems architecture has been around for a long time, but it has gained significant momentum in the last 18 to 24 months. Open systems allow the department to leverage commercial solutions more quickly, integrate new components more easily, and support faster upgrades and modifications over time.

He points to HII’s REMUS unmanned underwater vehicles as an example. Those systems have been built around commercial standards and open architecture, allowing customers to change mission packages either on their own or through HII. That flexibility matters because mission needs evolve. A closed system can limit adaptation. An open system gives the customer more control and speed.

Bishop also sees benefits for long-term sustainment. Open architectures can be cheaper and faster to support because they allow components to be replaced, upgraded, or modified without rebuilding the entire system. That is especially important in an environment where software, sensors, autonomy, and mission packages are changing quickly.

Looking ahead, Bishop says the department should continue down the path it has started. His message to government is simple: tell industry the problem, not exactly how to solve it. Let the industrial base, commercial market, and technology providers show what is available now and what can be fielded quickly.

He believes once government and industry have experienced the benefits of faster problem-based acquisition, it will be difficult to go back. That would be good for warfighters, who need capability sooner, and good for industry, which can compete on innovation, adaptability, and speed. Acquisition reform has been discussed for years. Bishop believes the difference now is that the department has a stronger reason, clearer direction, and a better chance to make it stick.

This interview was recorded on location at DefenseTech Live presented by HII Mission Technologies. Click Here for more insightful interviews from the event.