Innovations & technologies

Panel: DoD Needs To Evolve Its Approach to Innovation

The Department of Defense needs better tools to analyze and react to trends in the defense industrial base and to be more agile in its approach to innovation, a top Pentagon official said Monday.

These considerations come into play both in the DoD’s response to consolidation spurred by mergers and acquisitions within the industrial base, and to how the Pentagon develops and incorporates technological innovation from the commercial sector, said Andre Gudger, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for manufacturing and industrial base policy.

“We have to have a very dynamic market with very dynamic rules that continue to evolve as fast as the technology evolves,” he said. “Right now we just don’t have those tools available to us under the law to go and do that and view transactions on a broader basis.”