Northrop Grumman has been awarded $53 million to continue modernizing and sustaining the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) command and control (C2) system used to plan, execute and manage joint and multinational military operations. The award is an option exercised on the Global Command and Control System-Joint (GCCS-J) contract first announced in March 2013.

The contract extension for the GCCS-J program was issued by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) under the Encore II contracting vehicle. GCCS-J provides worldwide connectivity with all levels of command and integrates systems for situational awareness and intelligence.

"As part of DISA's modernization plan, we are optimizing GCCS-J for the joint and coalition environment, designing a globally accessible C2 data fabric and streamlining the system," said Mike Twyman, vice president and general manager, defense systems division, Northrop Grumman Information Systems. "The effort will continue to enhance the value and operations of this critical component of the nation's defense."

Over the past year, Northrop Grumman completed crucial modules to allow appropriate information sharing across multiple security levels. The company strengthened system protection to address an increasingly hostile cyber environment. Working with DISA, initial software was piloted to provide the foundation for the Joint C2 data fabric concept.

Joint C2 doctrines aim to deliver dynamic, customizable and user-driven capabilities that are secure, interoperable and responsive to current and future warfighter requirements.

Northrop Grumman continued with system migration to open architectures for reduced operational costs and increased flexibility. Collaborating with DISA, GCCS family of systems leads and warfighter representatives, the company also began to identify and eliminate lower priority modules to save costs and modernize priority functions to improve performance.

"In 2013, the program again successfully completed CMMI Level 5 assessment and recertified its AS9100 registration, maintaining our commitment to engineering and quality excellence," said Winter McCall, director, Joint C2 business unit, Northrop Grumman Information Systems.

The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) for Development model is used to appraise and recognize best practices in software and systems engineering. AS9100 is an international quality standard signifying a commitment to meet or exceed stringent industry requirements.