Standards Management
Abstract
The Open Architecture Management Office (OAMO) at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center is responsible for developing, evolving, and managing open standards. Open standards permit Department of Defense programs to reduce acquisition and life-cycle costs as well as the risks associated with development, sustainment, technology refresh, and capability upgrades of mission systems on weapon systems. The OAMO continues to manage the Open Mission Systems (OMS) and the Universal Command and Control Interface (UCI) Standards. The OAMO will continue executing efforts to mature various open standards and government reference architectures (GRAs) to ensure compatibility and interoperability to meet program needs. Finally, OAMO will continue to enable application of open standards in weapon system designs, and to enable open standards and GRAs to transition to OAMO management. OAMO provides funding to multiple entities, including but not limited to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the 76th Software Engineering Group (76 SWEG), defense contractors, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, and University Affiliated Research Centers in support of standards management activities. AFRL is responsible for executing science and technology initiatives to further develop the OMS/UCI Standards. The 76 SWEG is responsible for key activities and deliverables for the OMS and UCI standards Starter Kit, updating the Government critical abstraction layer, maintaining the Reference Implementation, integrating, and testing the Mission Package, completing Change Package Development and Sponsorship, supporting the Open Mission Systems (OMS) and Universal Command and Control Interfaces (UCI) management activities, providing support to adopting programs, and providing training and associated documentation. These entities will also be funded to support activities for other open standards and GRA initiatives Managing a collaborative tools environment, updating tools in the OMS/UCI Defense contractors have been on contract for over 5 years working as one government led consortium (the Open Architecture Collaborative Working Group (OACWG)) to produce the OMS/UCI standards, and new to 2023 was an included subset of the OACWG, The Normalization Subgroup (NS) which researches, determines, and evolves the set of normalized UCI messages, behaviors, and use cases as well as support the inclusion of the additions into the OMS/UCI Standards. The NS is responsible for delivering an updated digital model (ECD 2025) and providing principles and methodology to the annual OMS/UCI standards. The OAMO will continue to develop the Government Avionics Reference Architecture (GARA) which provides a reference architecture and digital engineering model (e.g., Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)) for legacy platforms to adopt an open architecture approach as defined in the NDAA and to follow senior leader direction. GARA is a key initiative to ensure alignment and interoperability of legacy programs, break "vendor-lock” to increase competition while lowering capability upgrade cost and enable legacy platforms to upgrade at a pace relevant to today's threat. The OAMO will execute P3I initiatives as required and include activities such as specifically targeted improvements to open standards and open architecture initiatives (e.g., Sensor Open Systems Architecture), coordination with other standardization efforts, enhancements (including cybersecurity, as required), and widening the relevancy and applicability of the standards the OAMO is involved with. This program element may include necessary civilian pay expenses required to manage, execute, and deliver open standards capability. The use of such program funds would be in addition to the civilian pay expenses budgeted in program elements 0605826F, 0605827F, 0605829F, 0605830F, 0605831F, 0605832F, 0605898F, and 0605833F. This program element may include necessary emergent or unanticipated civilian pay expenses required to manage, execute, and deliver Open Architecture Management for emergent or unanticipated weapon system capability. The use of such program funds would be in addition to the civilian pay expenses budgeted in program element 0056.” This program is in Budget Activity 5, System Development and Demonstration (SDD) because it has passed Milestone B approval and is conducting engineering and manufacturing development tasks aimed at meeting validated requirements prior to full rate production.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Project
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2025
- Source ID
- 656060_0605056F_5_3600_PB_2025
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