Joint forces seek collaboration tool
Looking toward future operations that will put a premium on being light and fast, the Joint Forces Command is looking into a collaborative planning tool to coordinate military efforts
Looking toward future operations that will put a premium on being light
and fast, the Joint Forces Command is seeking a collaborative planning tool
to coordinate experiments among the military forces and coalition partners.
The command expects that a collaborative workspace suite would save
time and money by allowing planners to cut travel time involved in coordinating
upcoming experiments. The suite also is expected to enhance information
sharing, allow for better decision-making and enable participants to coordinate
mock warfighting efforts from remote locations, thereby reducing the command
and control personnel and equipment in deployed areas.
"We will need a small, mobile, flexible command and control organization...to
be responsive and to keep the headquarters out of harm's way," said Russ
Richards, who leads the Joint Warfighting Experimentation Battle Lab's information
superiority team.
Joint Forces Command's Joint Experimentation Directorate, Norfolk, Va.,
expects interested contractors to respond by June 5 to a request for information
released May 22 that is designed to explore capabilities and prices for
the system, which will be used primarily on unclassified networks.
The functions needed include audio conferencing, document storage, document
version control, document and application sharing, text chat and virtual
conference spaces.
Joint experiments "involve all four services and their battlelabs, which
are extended all over the country. It's due to the high amount of planning
and coordination it takes to get the experiments off the ground," said Jack
Winger, integration and knowledge management division chief at the joint
experimentation directorate. "We hope to save time and money in making those
planning and coordination-type contacts take place and to do it from desk
instead of having to travel all over the country."
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