Pentagon’s innovation arm looks beyond acquisition reform to speed commercial tech buying

The White House has made it clear that it wants to uncomplicate the Pentagon’s labyrinthian acquisition system. But the antiquated process that treats buying quadcopter drones the same as fighter jets is not the only thing that keeps commercial companies from national security work.

While the Defense Department must ensure the software it puts on “government systems is secure in the event of various and even more sophisticated attacks,” the potentially yearslong process of getting an authority to operate is “a tremendous barrier in terms of the amount of time and cost it takes,” Liz Young McNally, the Defense Innovation Unit’s deputy director for commercial operations, said Wednesday at the Apex Defense forum. 

The authority-to-operate, or ATO, process is required to verify that software is safe to use. 

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