WASHINGTON - Stan Levine, acting director of the U.S. Army Digitization Office in the Pentagon will deliver the keynote address April 17 to COTScon East 2000, the third annual conference and exhibition dedicated to electronic systems design with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and software, at the Renaissance Washington D.C. Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The topic of Levine's keynote speech is COTS on the digital battlefield of the 21st Century, and will outline the Army's strategy to leverage digital technology as it relates to commercially developed and procured components and subsystems, and to industry standards and open-systems architectures.
The mission of the Army Digitization Office is to synchronize and integrate requirements, programs, forces, and money to digitize the U.S. Army by 2010. Program leaders are set to begin digitizing the Army starting with one combat division by the end of this year, a second division by 2003, and a corps by 2004.
Military experts have long maintained that COTS equipment, subsystems, and components are key to giving the Army the best possible digital technology at the least cost to the American taxpayers.
One of the many highlights of COTScon East 2000 is a presentation from experts at the Illinois Institute of Technology, who will detail the latest Defense Department guidelines on predicting the reliability of electronic equipment. Their presentation centers on guidelines that will replace what has been known as MIL-HDBK-217.
The theme of COTScon East 2000 is "COTS: Winning Strategies," and the conference will include content on some of the most recent U.S. system-design lessons learned, and also will look ahead to the use of COTS in the future U.S. Navy Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile, and in a major vetronics upgrade to the U.S. Army M108A6 Paladin self-propelled howitzer.
COTScon East 2000 is for engineers, engineering managers, program managers, executive managers, prime contractors, subcontractors, platform integrators, and subsystems manufacturers.
The cost of attending COTScon East 2000 is $650. To register, contact the COTScon show and exhibition group by phone at 603-891-9267, by fax at 603-891-9490, or by e-mail at [email protected].
