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As of October 25, 2020, there are 4812 open recommendations, of which 473 are priority recommendations. Recommendations remain open until they are designated as Closed-implemented or Closed-not implemented.
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Recommendation: The Secretary of Defense should direct the Secretaries of the Air Force, Army, and Navy to assess their respective service-level and program office capabilities relating to an open systems approach and work with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Engineering to develop short-term and long-term strategies to address any capability gaps identified. Strategies could include the Navy's cross-cutting approach where a team of a few technical experts within the Naval Air Systems Command could be available to work with program offices, as necessary, to help develop open systems plans.
Agency: Department of Defense Status: Open
Comments: DOD partially concurred with our recommendation. A DOD official noted that the department's understanding of an open systems approach has evolved since our recommendation was made and each military service has established working groups and communities of practice related to the implementation of a modular open systems approach. In addition, the official noted that Defense Acquisition University (DAU) curriculum addresses both open systems approaches and intellectual property, and that its course on open systems approaches was updated in 2018. DOD Human Capital Initiatives officials also indicated that DOD would be conducting a competency assessment of the the engineering workforce across the department, which would provide an indication of the open system capabilities at the service and program office level. However, as of August 2020, that assessment has yet to be conducted and therefore it remains unclear the extent to which capability gaps exist.
