Army acquisition professionals are seizing on a rare opportunity to streamline and improve the service’s contracting and acquisition processes, a panel of experts said July 22.

“We’ve been through these big muscle movements before,” said Kimbely Buehler, acting deputy assistant secretary of the Army for procurement. But directives from DoD and the Army’s most senior leaders have put “acquisition reform on steroids,” she said during a panel on innovative contracting authorities and mechanisms.

The discussion was part of a Hot Topic on Army contracting and procurement hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army.

“When you combine all the executive orders, all the memos from the secretary of defense, secretary of the Army, and with the technological advances we see before us, it really provides us the opportunity to fundamentally shift how we’re doing work today,” Buehler said.

The addition of artificial intelligence also has the potential to “fundamentally” shift how the Army’s contracting professionals accomplish their work, she said. “Everything we do really comes down to data,” she said. “In contracting, we have a ton of data, but is it reliable, is it repeatable so we can make quality decisions we can stand behind? I think that’s where this opportunity is.”

The Army must look at how to streamline processes and eliminate unnecessary steps, Buehler said. “We spend a lot of time on all of these processes, and we do that because that’s what we do,” she said. The Army needs to “get away from that and figure out how to collapse all of that and have engaging, candid conversations with our industry partners,” she said.

Danielle Moyer, executive director of U.S. Army Contracting Command-Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, said there is more openness now to taking smart risks, failing quickly and moving faster.

“What I love about a lot of what’s happening right now is there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to it,” Moyer said.

As Army acquisition moves forward, it must ensure its workforce has the right skills and capabilities, Buehler said. “I’m personally very excited about how we’re going to bring all this together,” she said. “I don’t know that we’ll ever fully be on the other side. The Army’s going to be continuously transforming, continuously evolving. There’s always going to be new technology we’re going to need to employ.”

The goal is to “accelerate capability delivery to soldiers,” she said. “At the end of the day, that’s what this is all about.”