PEO Pulse - March 20, 2020

The "PEO Pulse" is a weekly digest of relevant news, recent PEO EIS events and updates to keep our workforce informed. 

Take a look at the headlines in this week's edition:

• PEO EIS COVID-19 RESOURCES, Q&A
• US ARMY CHIEF: HOW COVID-19 WILL IMPACT MODERNIZATION IS A WAIT-AND-SEE SITUATION
• CAN THE ARMY CONVINCE CONGRESS IT'S LEARNED FROM FCS?
• DOD LOOKS TO INDUSTRY FOR ANTI-COVID-19 PROTOTYPES
• HOW CORONAVIRUS COULD IMPACT THE DEFENSE SUPPLY CHAIN
• LENGYEL: TENS OF THOUSANDS OF NATIONAL GUARD MEMBERS WILL LIKELY BE CALLED FOR CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE
• THE NAVY WILL TEST PUSHING NEW SOFTWARE TO SHIPS AT SEA
• OPM ASKS FEDERAL HEALTH INSURANCE PROVIDERS TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO PREPARE FOR CORONAVIRUS
• CONTRACTORS STILL WAITING ON CONSISTENT PANDEMIC GUIDANCE
• ARMY POSTPONES ITS INDUSTRY DAY FOR A MAJOR CYBER TRAINING CONTRACT
• RAYTHEON: ROBOTIZED FACTORY SPEEDS UP ARMY LTAMDS RADAR

►► AROUND EIS

UPCOMING EVENTS

• Mar. 26: Lunch & Learn.  This will be a virtual event in keeping with guidance to limit in-person meetings to no more than 6 people.

PEO EIS COVID-19 Q&A
• This document provides links to Army, CDC and other federal resources relevant to the pandemic: 

►► ARMY

US ARMY CHIEF: HOW COVID-19 WILL IMPACT MODERNIZATION IS A WAIT-AND-SEE SITUATION
It’s realistic for the U.S. Army to wait and see how the new coronavirus might affect its ambitious plans to modernize the force, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville told Defense News in a March 18 interview. With major economic centers on both U.S. coasts restricting public gatherings, and with most of the country attempting social distancing to avoid the spread of the virus, industry as of this week appeared to still be sorting out how it would handle its own workforce and keep employees safe from infection.

CAN THE ARMY CONVINCE CONGRESS IT'S LEARNED FROM FCS?
“This is the Army’s third attempt at replacing the Bradley,” the grim-faced chairman of defense appropriations, Rep. Pete Visclosky, warned Army officials last week. “We’ve been told, time and again, that this time it is different…. but the first large acquisition program that has come out of the Army Futures Command has fallen flat. You do need to convince this committee today that our continued support of modernization will eventually be a good investment.”

►► FEDERAL

DOD LOOKS TO INDUSTRY FOR ANTI-COVID-19 PROTOTYPES
The Defense Department is looking for prototype solutions to combat the novel coronavirus disease and other emerging biothreats. DOD is hoping to tap industry and academia for potential capabilities that will speed the development of technologies and methods that can prevent, contain, treat and detect the exposure of COVID-19 and other emerging threats, according to a March 15 contracting notice issued by the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity.

HOW CORONAVIRUS COULD IMPACT THE DEFENSE SUPPLY CHAIN
As the American defense industry tries to assess the way forward under the new coronavirus pandemic, it should keep a close eye on the lower tiers of its supply chain, analysts warn. There are two key factors when considering supply chain logistics: production and delivery. On the production side, hurdles include the potential for workers to have to halt production work due to the spread of the virus — something that has happened, albeit temporarily, at F-35 production spots in Italy and Japan — as well as economic impacts.

LENGYEL: TENS OF THOUSANDS OF NATIONAL GUARD MEMBERS WILL LIKELY BE CALLED FOR CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE
State governors will likely call up tens of thousands of National Guard members to respond to the coronavirus, says the bureau’s top official. Gen. Joseph Lengyel told reporters Thursday that currently 2,050 National Guard members are working in service of 27 states. He expects that number to double by this weekend. “As mission sets and requirements develop, governors can incrementally bring more members in,” Lengyel said at the Pentagon. “We can become available and come on duty in a matter of hours. I’m expecting tens of thousands to be used inside the states as this grows.”

THE NAVY WILL TEST PUSHING NEW SOFTWARE TO SHIPS AT SEA
The Navy plans to test next year whether it can push new software — not just patches but new algorithms and battle-management aids — to its fleet without the assistance of in-person installation teams. Navy officials plan to send the first upgrades to the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln’s C4I systems for a test in early 2021, officials said during a March 3 media roundtable at the West 2020 trade show in San Diego.

►► WORKFORCE

OPM ASKS FEDERAL HEALTH INSURANCE PROVIDERS TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO PREPARE FOR CORONAVIRUS
The Office of Personnel Management wants federal health insurance providers to make sure they’re ready for COVID-19. OPM urged Federal Employee Health Benefits carriers to ease up on typical cost sharing requirements for coronavirus testing and telehealth visits. They should also consider waiving fees or reimbursing participants for medical care, ambulance transportation and other costs associated with coronavirus treatment. At least one FEHB carrier has already said it will waive cost sharing requirements for COVID-19. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Program announced its plans last week.

CONTRACTORS STILL WAITING ON CONSISTENT PANDEMIC GUIDANCE
Lawmakers want the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management to require federal agencies to publicly post their contingency plans for so everyone has a better idea of what to expect as more federal employees move to telework and other alternative operations. Some agencies posted some contractor-specific contingency guidance in the last few days ahead of the March 19 letter from Senate lawmakers, but federal contractors FCW has spoken with in the last few days said official agency advice for contractors is scarce.

►► INDUSTRY

ARMY POSTPONES ITS INDUSTRY DAY FOR A MAJOR CYBER TRAINING CONTRACT
The Army postponed its planned industry day for its much-anticipated cyber training contract as a result of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, the service announced March 17. Industry day for the Army’s Cyber Training, Readiness, Integration, Delivery and Enterprise Technology, or Cyber TRIDENT — a contract vehicle meant to increase the speed at which the Defense Department can procure cyber training tools — was originally planned for April 2 in Orlando, Florida.

RAYTHEON: ROBOTIZED FACTORY SPEEDS UP ARMY LTAMDS RADAR
Last October, the Army gave Raytheon a new kind of contract for a new kind of radar. Originally envisioned as simply an upgrade for the iconic but aging Patriot missile defense system, the Lower-Tier Air & Missile Defense Sensor has evolved into a multi-purpose radar that can share data with multiple kinds of command posts and launchers, not just Patriot, over the Army’s new IBCS network. Its components use gallium nitride (GaN), instead of the traditional gallium arsenide (GaS), which means less electrical energy wasted as heat and more pouring out of the radar to detect incoming threats at greater distances.