Strategic Plan
Introduction
We are at a very challenging time in our programs. As many in our workforce transition to retirement, the baton is being passed to us to carry on the programmatic and technical excellence on which Strategic Systems Programs is grounded. SSP continues to support the sailors and the fleet, ensuring they have the capability to meet their missions. The systems SSP provides to the sailors and fleet continue to demonstrate a high state of readiness, reliability, accuracy and affordability.
SSP is in a state of transition. Not only in our workforce, but also in the missions we have been given to support the needs of our Nation. Our core Strategic Weapons System mission and Treaty Implementation mission require unique skills and abilities. By leveraging our core capabilities, we have been able to provide efficient and effective solutions in our expanded business line of Nuclear Weapons Security, and the new business lines of SSGN Attack Weapons Systems, Payload Integration, and Emerging Missions. In support of these business lines, the Strategic Plan, People Management Strategy Plan and Continuous Improvement Process will serve as the foundation for improving our efficiency and molding our workforce for the future.
This Strategic Plan provides the framework to move SSP into the future while aligning SSP with Navy leadership guidance: Secretary of the Navy Objectives; Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Guidance; and Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research Development and Acquisition) Acquisition Source Document.
Purpose
To state the direction and strategy our organization must take to effectively execute our programs to ensure we provide maximum value directly to the warfighter and to our other customers who support the warfighter or perform other activities essential to the defense effort.
Background
Strategic Systems Programs (SSP) has a fifty-year history of providing credible sea-based deterrent missile systems. Our deterrent systems have been and remain a key factor in preventing nuclear war, and they helped our Nation win the Cold War. We still have this vital deterrent mission. However, delivery of high-quality and well supported systems to the fleet on time and within budget is no longer sufficient. In the current environment and in the foreseeable future, it is necessary to better this performance to achieve more with greater effi ciency and to free resources to address emergent needs.
Current Environment and Future Direction
Since the end of the Cold War, the entire defense environment has been changing; over the decade of the 1990s, the nation accepted a "peace dividend," with
decreasing resources the DoD norm. Then change increased markedly when the September 11, 2001 attack formally initiated the War on Terror. The Secretary of Defense
accelerated the transformation effort that he had begun upon taking office, and overall Defense resources increased somewhat. The Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) provided
a vision termed Sea Power 21. This vision served as the setting to align Navy efforts, hasten progress, and realize the potential of the Navy’s people. It identified
the concepts that lie at the heart of the Navy’s continued operational effectiveness: Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing, which respectively describe projection
of precise and persistent offensive power, projection of global defensive assurance, and projection of joint operational independence. More recently, the CNO emphasized
themes for 2005: "Mission First, People Always," addressing the importance of Navy people, "Transforming Naval Forces," as to how the Navy fights
and how it conducts business, and "Excellence in Warfighting."
Within the Navy acquisition community, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition) (ASN(RD&A)) issued a Blueprint for the Future that provided guiding principles for research, development, and acquisition. These principles are "think like a business and run a tight ship," "innovate and collaborate to deliver effective, affordable weapons for Sailors and Marines," and "integrate systems and develop people."
A long held SSP tenet has been that "our customer is the sailor in the fleet." Supporting the warfighter remains our primary responsibility. However, as the above cited direction makes clear, SSP also must introduce further efficiencies into technical and business processes and must develop the SSP workforce in order to increase productivity and to provide a rewarding and challenging career environment where the stability necessary for productivity gain is present. This parallel focus on improving processes and developing people will serve to increase affordability as well. In this way, SSP will be able to improve in all four business views: products to the warfighter, people, process, and financial—in a balanced manner. As a result, SSP’s strategic deterrence mission is enhanced to encompass a larger and more diverse focus. Similarly, our vision has evolved, but our core values remain fundamental to continued and increased excellence in a changing world.
Mission
"Provide credible and affordable strategic solutions to the warfighter."
- Provide: technology, design, development, production, operational support and retirement
- Credible: meet mission requirements / warfighting capability, reliable, supportable over the long term
- Affordable: cost effective across the complete life cycle
- Strategic: nuclear, conventional, timely
- Solutions: concepts, plans, programs, weapon system, advice / consultation, direction
- Warfighter: sailor, resource sponsor, COCOM, CSE Navy PM
Vision
Apply SSP values and abilities to:
- Deliver high performance and responsive products to the warfighter;
- Meet and/or exceed stakeholders' expectations;
- Continually improve our processes
- Enrich the civilian and military workforce;
- Sustain the Government / contractor strategic alliance
Core Values
The effort to fulfill all aspects of our broadened mission rests on a foundation of core values that have been shown to be key to executing significant responsibiltiy over the long term.
- Commitment to People - Our people are our greatest asset. We support them in their personal and professional development.
- Integrity - We do what is right and honest and always tell the truth.
- Respect - We treat each other with dignity, and value diverse opinions, cultures, education and experience.
- Accountability - We accept responsibility for our actions and decisions.
- Professional Excellence - We strive to be the best at what we do.
- Partnership - We value long-term relationships with our industry and Government participants, based on shared priorities and goals that result in win-win outcomes.
- Communications - We share all information, good and bad, openly, clearly, and honestly. "We don’t shoot the messenger."
- Innovation - We encourage creative thinking and visionary ideas that exploit new technologies and business opportunities.
- Empowerment - We provide authority, responsibility and resources to make decisions at the lowest appropriate level.
- Dedication - We value the long-term commitment of our civilian and military team members to the program.
- Technical Excellence - We are committed to systems engineering disciplines that ensure a credible deterrent supported throughout the entire life cycle.
Six Lines of Business
In developing, producing, and supporting six generations of strategic weapons systems, SSP acquired specific skills and organizational values that support a capability to accomplish related efforts of importance to the Navy and the Nation. Over the recent past, SSP has begun leveraging this capability to meet additional Navy needs. Accordingly, SSP has expanded its focus to these Six Lines of Business:
- Strategic Weapons System (SWS) - (Maintaining and extending the life of the TRIDENT II SWS, the Nation’s primary strategic deterrent.)
- Nuclear Weapons Security (NWS) - (Assuring security of nuclear weapons in US Navy custody.)
- SSGN Attack Weapons System (AWS) - (Providing and supporting the AWS on converted Ohio class submarines that deploy Tomahawk missiles and other payloads.)
- Payload Integrator -(Providing seamless end-to end integration of alternate payloads on submarines with large diameter tubes.)
- Emerging Missions - (Providing rapid and cost effective expansion of submarine-based capabilities that fill validated joint warfighting gaps under the new Triad.)
- Navy Treaty Implementation Program (NTIP) - (Assuring DoN Compliance with all applicable Arms Control Treaties and Agreements.)
Balanced Business View (Products to the Warfighter, People, Process, Financial)
SSP’s success over our 50 year history of designing, producing, delivering and supporting strategic weapons systems on board POLARIS, POSEIDON and TRIDENT II submarines has been achieved via four tenets in each program:
- Delivering systems that perform at the highest level
- Supporting these deployed systems to sustain high-level performance
- Measuring customer satisfaction via planned interaction, and specifi cally through operation of efficient feedback systems that assure responsive and timely answers to customer queries and comments
Put simply, these four tenets together provide the warfighter what is needed, provide it on time, and confirm performance via test and customer feedback.
The current challenge is to extend this approach across the added business lines in a realistic, affordable manner that considers and manages risks, achieves quantitative and qualitative objectives, and measures outcomes. This requires implementing well-planned and sound technical and managerial approaches across all business lines in order to achieve good value and to fully meet warfighter needs. In doing so, we will continue to demonstrate SSP’s expertise to the decision makers that fund each business line. In turn, the confidence engendered will lead to an important outcome — that decision makers pay serious attention to SSP’s inputs regarding requirement achievability issues, funding decisions, and changes in focus or scope in each business line. Beyond this important universal point, however, the specific initiatives required to fully satisfy the warfighter at all levels are business line-sensitive and are best discussed individually.
This discussion by business line that follows is from the warfighter’s immediate perspective of success in warfighting. Affordability is critical to providing the warfighter with the capability to meet mission requirements. Affordability will be discussed in the following sections, where its achievement will be coupled with the essential activities of continuous improvement and development of a highly effective workforce.
This business view first enumerates the products that SSP will provide to the warfighter in each business line. It then focuses on how SSP will achieve the workforce needed for the future. This is complemented by a discussion of the process improvements required to achieve necessary efficiencies and increased responsiveness. Finally, the affordability necessary to provide diverse and high-quality products to the warfighter will be related to gains in workforce capability and process efficiencies.
Strategic Weapons System (SWS)
The TRIDENT II SWS was deployed by the US in 1990 and by the UK in 1995 (with the UK having acquired their SWS from the US under the POLARIS Sales Agreement as amended for TRIDENT II). It is the primary strategic deterrent in both navies. SSP retains support responsibility for the entire SWS with the exception of Navy training of SSBN personnel, although we do support the TRIDENT II Training Facilities. The SWS must remain highly reliable and accurate, as demonstrated by fl ight test, to assure credibility. The current challenge is to maintain performance and safety within resources and implement SWS life extension to align with extended SSBN life.
| Objective | Measures |
|---|---|
| A credible sea-based strategic deterrent |
|
Customers: Commander, US Strategic Command (COMUSSTRATCOM)
Commander, Fleet Forces Command (CFFC)
The SSBN Fleet
The United Kingdom’s Royal Navy
Nuclear Weapons Security (NWS)
SSP, as the Technical Program Manager for NWS, is responsible for security and safety of nuclear weapons while in US Navy custody (e.g., at Strategic Weapons Facilities (SWFs), weapons storage facilities, and on board submarines). SSP is leading DoD efforts to improve NWS, and the Navy NWS Roadmap will be used as the basis for the DoD NWS Roadmap. Based on Presidential direction, NWS has become a high interest item. New requirements in the DoD NWS Manual (S5210.41M) were signed out in November, 2004, and these represent a major change. Continued technical program definition, acquisition planning and execution are the current NWS focus. The NWS Program must identify and articulate current risk and describe how SSP plans to mitigate this risk over time to satisfy the new requirements.
| Objective | Measures |
|---|---|
| Effective and efficient nuclear weapons security systems in accordance with national policy |
|
Customers: Commander, Fleet Forces Command (CFFC)
The SSBN Fleet
SSGN Attack Weapons System (AWS)
After a period of examination and planning, the Navy received a favorable decision from DoD to convert four Ohio class TRIDENT II submarines, that formerly deployed the TRIDENT I (C4) SWS, to a tactical capability. Based on SSP’s long experience with the SWS in this submarine and our proven skills in fire control, launcher, and weapons system integration, we were charged with developing the AWS portion of this effort. The AWS includes the fire control and the launcher as well as supporting shore capability for payloads. The SSGN will deploy the Tomahawk weapons system, which SSP will integrate into the submarine. The SSP fire control will leverage Tomahawk fire control development, and the launcher will accommodate a number of Tomahawk missiles in Their Multiple All-Up-Round Canisters (MACs) within the envelope occupied by a TRIDENT II missile. The SSGN will have a reconfigured payload comprising fewer Tomahawk missiles but with the addition of Special Operation Forces (SOFs). The Initial Operational Capability (IOC) is planned for 2007.
| Objective | Measures |
|---|---|
| Ohio class conventional missile delivery system that accommodates concurrent SOF missions. |
|
Customers: CFFC
Combatant Commanders (COCOM)
PEO (SUB)
PMS-398
The SSGN Fleet
Payload Integrator
Leveraging SSP’s proven engineering disciplines in the development of the TRIDENT II and SSGN launcher subsystems and the inherent flexibility of modern fire control subsystems, SSP is the Payload Integrator for large diameter tubes. SSP shall implement systems engineering processes that retain the fidelity of legacy methodologies while allowing for rapid integration of payload solutions. SSP will develop an open and flexible architecture that allows the cost-effective deployment of payloads in a timely manner.
| Objective | Measures |
|---|---|
| End-to-end seamless integration of alternate payloads |
|
Customers: COCOM
Submarine Fleet
PEO (SUB)
PMS-398
Emerging Missions
As SSP looks to the future and recognizes the needs of our nation in the global war on terrorism, Combatant Commanders such as STRATCOM will need both nuclear and conventional strategic weapons. A variety of missions may be satisfied by derivative changes to the SWS. For example, penetrating nuclear or conventional warheads could be delivered by modification to the current TRIDENT II system. To meet the need for tactical strike in support of a land force at some distance from the sea, a Submarine Launched Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (SLIRBM) is a sensible alternative. SSP may find it necessary to develop and deploy weapons such as these, often in a spiral manner where initial capability deploys quickly to be followed by a series of evolutionary improvements that also deploy in minimum time.
| Objective | Measures |
|---|---|
| Rapid and cost-effective expansion of submarine-based capabilities that fill validated joint warfighting gaps under the new Triad |
|
Customers: CFFC
Commander, US Strategic Command (COMUSSTRATCOM)
COCOM
The SSBN Fleet
PEO (SUB)
Navy Treaty Implementation Program (NTIP)
NTIP is the lead office for all DoN Arms Control compliance and implementation functions. It develops and executes the necessary plans and detailed procedures to ensure compliance with arms control agreements. The program office identifies acquisition programs or research efforts most likely to be affected by arms control treaties and coordinates with affected Program Managers to ensure that plans and designs for these programs are compliant with treaty requirements. This office also assists program managers in meeting arms control certifications for acquisition milestones. NTIP identifies and conducts reviews of the programs and projects of DoN warfare centers, other shore activities and operating forces that are most likely affected by arms control treaties, and it provides for the training, awareness and outreach products that assist the DoN in facilitating treaty compliance and implementation. NTIP provides advice and assistance to OSD treaty managers about the impacts of arms control on the DoN, and it submits arms control agreement compliance reports to ASN(RD&A).
| Objective | Measures |
|---|---|
|
DoN Compliance with all applicable arms control treaties, including avoidance of unauthorized disclosure of national security information A staffing and training plan that sustains NTIP core competencies |
|
Customers: Office of the Secretary of Defense
Operating Forces
Navy Program Managers
RDT&E Community
DoN Activities
People
SSP’s People Management (PM) Strategy defines the key process for sustaining and moving SSP to its future state. The foundation for SSP’s PM Strategy is one of our core values;
"Commitment to People - Our people are our greatest asset.
We support them in their personal and professional development."
SSP’s fifty-year history of successfully providing credible sea-based deterrent missile systems is attributed directly to its people. This vital deterrent mission remains a national priority. SSP must maintain the legendary performance, reliability, affordability, and efficiency in an era of increasingly constrained resources.
A highly competent, motivated, and professionally growing workforce that exemplifies the core values listed earlier in this plan is prerequisite to all of the previously discussed activities. Absent these dedicated and highly valued civilian employees and military personnel, efforts to plan and execute, let alone improve, are sure to break down. PM is the means to develop the desired workforce excellence to meet current and future needs. It is an organizational necessity, and its planning and conduct is the key strategy in this area.
The benefits of the PM Strategy being established over the next year will demonstrate SSP’s commitment to our people. The goal of this effort is to ensure that in both the long and short terms we have highly talented people, with the right skills and behaviors, in the right jobs, at the right time. PM will flow down the metrics associated with SSP’s business lines to all parts of the Command so that each individual has a clear understanding of how his or her performance supports SSP’s goals. Most importantly, SSP will assess job satisfaction and will share this assessment with the workforce.
With strategic planning having defined SSP’s future functional requirements, organization-wide workforce planning may begin. Workforce planning translates strategic thinking into concrete action for workforce staffing and development needs. It includes creating a current workforce profi le, including skills assessment; a forecast of the numbers, types of jobs, and skills required in the future—one to five years out; and a comparison of the workforce supply projection with these needs. It then develops and implements plans for addressing/resolving gaps or surpluses.
The last step of the PM initial implementation is to revise policies, procedures, and processes. These include organization, performance appraisal, job design, staffing, employee development, compensation, promotion, and other factors that together put the necessary changes in place. Then, during ongoing implementation, assessment of future needs and personnel requirements will continue, learning and growth will occur, and job satisfaction will be assessed on a regular basis.
These activities will accommodate and abet implementation of the National Security Personnel System (NSPS). PM implementation will identify critical skills and behaviors, foster professional training to grow individual and workforce capability, and provide opportunity for additional responsibility and accompanying promotion. It will assure fairness in selection and evaluation and will recognize and reward employee excellence.
| Objective | Measures |
|---|---|
| Dynamic staffing plan that sustains SWS core competencies |
|
| Improve employee level of commitment, engagement, and contribution |
|
| Enhances employee career development |
|
Employees rated satisfactory and/or aligned to their competency |
|
Process
An organization is no more efficient than its processes allow.
SSP processes include budgeting, contracting, planning, program evaluation, maintaining personnel security, reporting, running an information technology network, systems engineering, designing, configuration management, calibration, and numerous others. They also include, recruitment, promotion and other personnel-related processes that are addressed in the People section of this Plan.
Sometimes processes get in the way of accomplishment; sometimes they make the job easier. An effort to improve processes can pay big dividends in terms of the products and services SSP provides. The goal of SSP process improvement is to deliver to the warfighter better performance with greater efficiency, while freeing resources to address emergent needs.
The primary process improvement activity is termed Continuous Improvement (CI). A CI Leadership Council (CILC), chaired by the SSP Chief Engineer, will assist the SSP Board of Directors (BOD) in this implementation. Throughout the SSP Command, SSP will both seek and attain improvement via innovation, creativity, and improved productivity in order to gain efficiency and/or reduce the cost of doing business. In so doing, SSP will exceed customer expectations, sustain our commitment to quality, and create opportunities for our workforce as individuals and as an organization. As a result of CI implementation, SSP decision-making will become more data driven.
An organization is no more efficient than its processes allow. SSP field activities and our private sector contractors similarly work to improve their processes, delivering high quality products and services faster and improving their affordability. To summarize, process improvement has three key activities:
- Complete establishment of a documented process improvement approach, as described above, at SSP Headquarters and Field Activities, and pursue its implementation in earnest.
- Assure, via contract, that SSP contractors are implementing similar CI processes within their organizations.
- Modify engineering and business processes to be amenable to rapid tailoring to fit the degree of robustness required by the systems being planned, designed, produced, or supported, considering mission, risk, customer requirements, and affordability.
| Objective | Measures |
|---|---|
| Implement Continuous Improvement |
CI Efforts Completed ________________ CI Efforts Started |
Financial
The warfighter benefits from being provided high-quality systems, receiving them quickly and having them supported soundly. As funding is limited, providing the range and depth of needed systems requires that each be managed to minimize its costs. Moreover, additional cost reductions often are sought in existing systems in order to reapply savings toward further development. Attention to finances, budgets, and expenditures clearly is highly important.
To improve affordability, overhead costs must be identified, understood and reduced throughout the SSP community and across all business lines. Beyond this, the costs of designing, delivering and supporting systems require reduction but without undue risk to the systems and without causing shortfalls to requirements. Cost reductions achieved in this manner are a universal metric.
Strategies to increase affordability:
- Implement a CI program to improve processes in the Government and at contractors.
- Implement a PM Strategy to develop and maintain a more productive workforce.
- Implement a risk management program to understand and balance risks among cost, performance, and schedule.
- Examine all business lines to identify and understand the need for unique components that are necessary to system performance. "Unique" here applies to facilities, equipments, and people. Define approaches to minimize uniqueness, and if not possible to do so, develop the most cost-effective method of maintaining their availability.
- For tactical systems such as the SSGN AWS, Payload Integration products, and systems to perform Emerging Missions, identify solutions that maximize reuse of existing infrastructure, pursuing new infrastructure only to avoid unacceptable impact on operations.
- Provide realistic cost-effective solutions at all times and particularly in Payload Integration and Emerging Missions so that costs do not exceed expectations, so that systems deploy in a relatively short period, and so that decision makers are provided with sound options. A sound option has clear estimates of cost, schedule and performance, and of the risks associated with each of these key parameters.
Affordability increases as processes are sharpened and as the workforce achieves its full potential. Additionally, synergism amplifies results when these two areas are addressed in parallel within an integrated effort.
| Objective | Measures |
|---|---|
| Identify, understand, and reduce costs without negative effect on operational metrics. |
Current Cost ________________ Baseline Cost |
Summary
This Strategic Plan describes the current and future operational environment. It documents SSP’s expanded mission, its vision and values, and the business lines within SSP’s area of responsibility.
It discusses our primary customers, the warfighter, and the supporting Six Lines of Business. It also recognizes that continuous improvement combined with a more productive, professional, and satisfied workforce will result in the most optimum business lines. Optimum business lines will yield affordable, flexible, and responsive products to all our customers and stakeholders.
These activities are closely related as illustrated above. Strategic planning is the basis for the policies that govern PM and for selection of the processes with the largest CI payoff. The excellent workforce and improved technical and business processes in turn provide necessary Summary capabilities. With strategic planning also offering specific initiatives to support the warfighter, the organization is aligned in the sense that all aspects pull together toward understood goals in the areas of product performance, timeliness, and affordability.
