Army Software Factory Touts Early Successes.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Editor's Notes

AUSTIN, Texas--As a defense technology reporter, I have gone on my fair share of factory tours.

I have seen the assembly of Army trucks, helicopters, satellites, rockets, batteries, radios, and even a module that would one day fly in the International Space Station.

But have never been on a tour quite as boring as the Army Software Factory in Austin, Texas.

And I mean no insult and cast no aspersions on my tour guide, Capt. Tyler Morrow, who showed me and a gaggle of techies from the private sector the one-year-old organization's headquarters on the edge of downtown Austin.

It's just that a "software factory" isn't visually interesting. It's a collection of personnel sitting in pods working on their computers--not quite as exciting as watching a CH-47 Chinook come off the manufacturing line.

Yet Morrow, who serves as senior products officer at the factory, had an interesting and good-news story to tell about the program's first year of existence.

The factory is creating apps "that are replacing spreadsheets that have been done on paper the same way since the Vietnam War," he said.

The Software Factory, located at the Austin Community College's Rio Grande Campus, is in a refurbished building that once housed a high school. Army Futures Command founded the organization 11 months before that day's tour. It now has some 200 personnel working there.

Leaders at its grand opening proclaimed that it had four primary objectives: increase digital proficiencies across the force; enable soldiers to dominate an information-centric battlefield; solve current Army problems by leveraging agile development security operations in cybersecurity practices and cloud technology; and harness the innovative spirit of the country through close collaboration with the tech industry and aca-demia.

Gen. John M. Murray, the now retired Futures Command leader, that day said: "The capability to develop software at the lowest tactical levels will help us provide better software products. We anticipate long-term cost savings and expect the Software Factory to help us maintain a competitive advantage across Army modernization efforts."

After 11 months, Morrow said the factory had delivered six apps that were developed under its roof.

One is "Blast Radius," an application that tells logisticians the safest spots to place munitions in a supply depot.

The Army had pursued software to map out the ideal placement of stored explosive weapons for 19 years under various contract...