Armed with Science , a site run by the Defense Department, reports that “in the not so distant past, spending seven years to usher capabilities through the acquisition process was the accepted norm. Not only was this method costly, but by the time we put equipment in the hands of soldiers our industry partners had already developed and introduced technologies to the public that could out-perform what we had delivered. We are bound, rightfully so, to ensure we insert safe, secure, and robust technologies into the field. However, with increased global disorder and the accelerated rate of our adversaries’ abilities to match—and sometimes overmatch—our capabilities, the status quo was no longer an option.”  

“To address this challenge, the Department of Defense introduced the Better Buying Power (BBP 1.0) initiative in 2010 to streamline processes, reduce costs and improve productivity. Today, BBP 3.0 emphasizes the need for research and development efforts across the science and technology spectrum and specifically promotes early prototyping and experimentation as a means to rapidly field capabilities to the soldiers—while those capabilities are still truly state-of-the-art.”