Air Force establishing ‘Megatron’ IDIQ to fast-track DAF Battle Network acquisitions
The Air Force’s portfolio acquisition executive responsible for modernizing command and control plans to create a new contract vehicle for the DAF Battle Network and other capabilities.
The upcoming multi-award indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract vehicle will be called Megatron, according to Brig. Gen. Joshua Williams, PAE for command, control, communications and battle management (C3BM). The procurement pathway is intended to provide a more agile mechanism for delivering C2 capabilities by adding both flexibility and industry expertise into the Air Force’s procurement processes.
“The DAF Battle Network depends on an industrial base that can innovate, integrate and deliver at the speed of relevance, and we need to build business mechanisms to enable their ability to do that,” Williams told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of AFA’s annual Air, Space and Cyber Conference.
The Air Force posted a special notice for Megatron in August, including a draft statement of work for industry feedback. The service describes the IDIQ as a hybrid supply-and-services vehicle supporting the development, procurement, delivery and sustainment of C3BM capabilities.
The C3BM office is seeking industry feedback as it continues to define the Megatron acquisition strategy. Details regarding the contract’s ceiling and work period have not been finalized, Williams said.
“We have the concept absolutely thought out,” he told reporters, adding that the Air Force plans to use requests for information and other industry-engagement mechanisms to further define what it needs.
The DAF Battle Network is the Department of the Air Force’s system-of-systems approach to connecting sensors, effectors and logistics technology so commanders can gain situational awareness, make decisions and direct forces more quickly. It currently serves as the Air and Space Force’s contribution to the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) effort.
Rather than representing a single program or piece of hardware, the DAF Battle Network is intended to provide an architecture through which different capabilities can be integrated and exchanged as operational circumstances and technology evolve. According to the department, the architecture integrates roughly 50 programs of record spanning the Air and Space Forces.
For C3BM, that means the acquisition challenge extends beyond buying individual systems.
“This contract is about integration to win,” Williams said. “We want industry to understand the mission problem, bring their best ideas, and be prepared to deliver interoperable and adaptive capability.”
Megatron will not be limited to a single DAF Battle Network program. Williams said the C3BM office is designing the vehicle with enough flexibility to support multiple appropriations and span different programs and capabilities contributing to the architecture.
The new vehicle is also intended to accommodate different acquisition approaches rather than locking C3BM into a single way of buying capability.
“The IDIQ is really focused on enabling our contracting aspect to enable operational delivery,” he said. “Whether that be commercial solutions, whether that be continuous software delivery, taking advantage of software pathways — that mechanism will enable our ability to do all of it.”
