Australia Extending ‘Rapid’ Procurement Program
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Australia’s Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation Program (RPDE or ‘Rapid’) commenced operations in February 2005. Drawing people, technology, facilities and contextual information from Defence and 83 industry participants of all sizes, ‘Rapid’ aims to accelerate new technology that can be useful to the ADF. Mostly, it’s about enhancement of existing capabilities rather than radical new breakthroughs, but those kinds of innovations can make a serious difference in the field – as the US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force has shown.
The latest development expands the program participant pool by about 70% in its third year of operation…
The program is currently working on 12 key tasks, and The Rapid Environmental Assessment Task has already lead Australia’s DoD to implement changes to organization, process and technology at Operational Headquarters. The program is also developing new approaches, including the ‘Quicklook’ which brings a broad cross-section of industry together to workshop key topics and report back to Defence within 10 weeks.
Key Events
May 31/07: The Australian government announces that 59 companies and academic institutions have been added to RPDE, joining 83 other companies and academic institutions. The Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, Bruce Billson:
“Rapid now has a pool of 142 respected and highly capable organisations from which to draw talented specialists to contribute to solving the issues that restrict aspects of Defence’s war-fighting capability.”
Jan 22/07: The Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, Bruce Billson, invites Australian industry to apply to join RPDE, following up on a Jan 13/07 advertisement in The Weekend Australian newspaper. Ministerial release
Sept 19/06: The Australian government considers the RPDE trial a success, and has now stated that it will fund the program with up to A$ 60 million (about USD $45 million at conversion) over the next 3 years. See Ministerial release.
