Driving Air Traffic Modernization
Using a Challenge-based Acquisition to Achieve Aggressive Modernization Timelines
Background
A federal aviation authority is implementing one of the largest and most operationally significant modernization efforts in decades. The aggressive timeline required a defensible alternative approach to the traditional years-long acquisition process.
The Challenge
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) acquisitions typically take years to move from concept development through market research, requirements definition, and vendor competition. The Department of Transportation’s vision for the Brand New Air Traffic Control System (BNATCS) runs on a much faster timeline, and development of a Common Automation Platform (CAP) demanded an acquisition strategy that could keep pace. That meant testing the market before locking in requirements, drawing maximum competitive input from industry, and staying within sound contracting frameworks and policy, all on leadership’s aggressive schedule.
The Approach
Evans led development of an alternative approach that took the program from market research to active vendor competition in under 12 months, more than three years faster than a conventional timeline. This was accomplished by using a challenge-based acquisition model under the Other Transaction Authority (OTA) and by specifically operationalizing three interlocking mechanisms:
- Evidence-based evaluation: Evans and the CAP acquisition team organized formal evaluation events with pre-defined acceptance criteria so that the FAA could assess all participating vendors on technical and operational grounds. The process compressed the initial discovery phase to several months rather than years.
- Dynamic market research: Rather than conducting market research solely via market surveys or industry days, the program held highly interactive and informative sessions with commercially available Air Traffic Control (ATC) automation solution providers. These sessions involved vendor demonstrations, Q&A sessions with vendor engineers and operational experts, and responses to government interest in learning more about a range of deployment and sustainment approaches. These interactions significantly shaped the government’s requirements and identified opportunities to leverage market-leading automation concepts.
- Iterative requirements development: Rather than develop the requirements at the outset of the initiative, the Evans approach applied agile principles – refining requirements iteratively by incorporating learnings illuminated through the vendor engagement process.
The Results
Using this approach the FAA was able to save time and resources, allowing the agency to more quickly down-select to a smaller group of competitors from the larger vendor pool. Simultaneous evaluation of the vendors’ proposed solutions reduced the time needed to gather valuable competitor performance data by more than 75%, enabling the accelerated acquisition timelines. Furthermore, developing requirements in parallel with market research and the early stages of the challenge-based acquisition reduced both the personnel and time needed to finalize government functional requirements by more than 30%, based on conservative assumptions. Taken together, this approach provides a scalable and repeatable model for advancing future large-scale, safety-critical enterprise modernization efforts on similarly aggressive timelines.
The Tradeoff of Not Acting
If the traditional acquisition approach had been employed, the FAA would not have been able to derive and apply insights from multiple vendors simultaneously nor would tight timelines for milestones have been met. By using this alternative acquisition approach, FAA has made rapid progress toward developing a common automation platform that will serve as a foundation for a modernized air traffic control system.
