Orphan Page (editing practice)

The First Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 20th centuries was marked by a transition from production by hand to machine production through the use of steam or water power. The Second Industrial Revolution from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries built upon the progress generated by the increased use of electricity as well as the railroad and telegraph networks that allowed people and concepts to move quickly. The Third Industrial Revolution of the late 20th century was a shift from mechanical and analogue electronics to digital electronics and was characterized by sweeping changes resulting from digital computing and digital communication technologies. During WWI and WWII, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) was a leader in technological innovation and use. Famously, a program in the Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA) paved the way for the modern internet, which has dramatically transformed society.

Throughout the digital revolution, the DoD has moved from being a technological leader during WWII to a slower adopter of digital and computational technologies today. Defense programs that currently utilize digital acquisition and engineering approaches often have to extract technical and programmatic information from their modeling environments to “print out” deliverables in paper form, given the current constraints in the acquisition system.

Digital transformation in the DoD requires an overhaul of two primary elements: engineering and acquisition. In 2018, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) published a Digital Engineering Strategy. This outlines the vision for digital engineering (DE) and five goals of the transition to a digitally based engineering and acquisition approach (DoD 2018). The DoD defines DE as “an integrated digital approach that uses authoritative sources of system data and models a continuum across disciplines to support lifecycle activities from concept through disposal” (DoD 2018). The primary goals of the Digital Engineering Strategy are illustrated at left.

Digital transformation is fundamentally changing the way acquisition and engineering are per-formed across a wide range of government agencies, industries, and academia. It is characterized by the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, changing fundamental operations and how results are delivered in terms of new value to customers. It includes cultural change centered on alignment across leadership, strategy, customers, operations, and workforce evolution.