For the first time in nine years, Simulation Australia hosted both SimTect and SimHealth as a joint event. This was most evident in the trade hall where more than half of the exhibitors were from the health domain.
There was a time when Defence easily outpaced this sector of the simulation market but that time has passed it seems. The big announcement on the defence side of the house was that the new Director General of the Australian Defence Simulation Office (ADSO) Commodore Charles McHardie would only hold the title for another week, after taking the job only a few months ago.
Fear not, the Commodore will now head up a new agency that combines ADSO with the Joint Combined Training Centre (JCTC). The new agency literally smashes the two together under the new Australian Defence Simulation and Training Centre (ADSTC), which also includes the J7 and J8 elements from HQJOC.
CDRE McHardie was given the directive to ‘create the Australian defence simulation centre under a one star based on the merging of ADSO and JCTC to establish a core capability of a defence synthetic environment’. There will also be a renewed focus in training balanced against reduced operations.
CDRE McHardie outlined the simulation landscape within the department, listing the wide range of simulatipn bodies and assets under different forms of management. These include:
- Australian Defence Simulation Office (ADSO) within Vice Chief Defence Force Group but had recently moved to HQJOC
- Joint Combined Training Capability (JCTC) within Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC)
- Simulation Offices with each Service
- J7/8 (Training & Exercises) Branch within HQJOC
- Training Commands within each Service
- Capability Development Group –Joint Project 3035
- Simulators, training centres, ranges sustained by Defence Material Organisation
- Defence Capability Program delivering Projects with simulation assets
The ADSTC will have three directorates under Simulation Governance, Simulation Services and Joint and Combined Training to achieve their vision which CDRE McHardie outlined as “The realisation of a mature systems centre capable of providing effective governance, trained simulation and exercise support workforce, applications and services that underpin a synthetic environment that supports the delivery of a challenging and complex training environment. These services are delivered in a repeatable, persistent and agile manner to the complete spectrum of Defence synthetic environment users.”
JP 3035
When JP 3028 was cancelled in 2012, there was a fear that simulation would once again be left behind when it came to joint project planning and delivery. But the emergence of JP3035, a slimmed down and more targeted version of JP3028, has gone some ways towards filling that gap.
JP3035 will look at the more immediate simulation future with JP 3035 Phase 1 Simulation Capability for Navy training, Phase 2 Core Simulation Capability and Phase 2 will also have the revised scope from JP 3028 that aimed to be all things to all people.
“JP 3035 will deliver the core simulation enterprise services to provide the foundation upon which a Defence simulation capability can be built, and selected simulation systems to support the Services training pipelines (especially the Navy training pipeline),” CDRE McHardie said.
“It will be focussed on the provision of enterprise services and products to support operational planning for Amphibious Operations in support of the Deployable Joint Force Headquarters (DJFHQ) and the Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) headquarters. IOC will be focussed on the provision of enterprise services and products to support operational planning for Amphibious Operations in support of the DJFHQ and the ARG headquarters.
“JP 3035 will be accepted as complete when the simulation enterprise services and products required to support a persistent, integrated, distributed synthetic environment have been delivered. This environment will support Joint and Coalition collective training, mission planning, and rehearsal,” CDRE McHardie said.
Standards
As some context for what standards look like in Defence, in 2011 ADSO had a list of 190 standards with no guidance or hints on how to actually use it and it had been managed in a very limited way, according to ADSTC’s Greg Akhurst.
ADSO was being asked by stakeholders which one do I use? How do they relate to diff domains and one another? Which ones are out of date?
As part of their attempt to make the list user friendly, there was been a rationalisation of this list. The current list now sits at 119 standards with another 30 or so to be extracted, Ackhurst said. Nearly 30 per cent of standards on the list were not simulation related; they were more related to ICT, engineering or geospatial standards but had been lumped in.
ADSTC is now keeping up with latest NATO and related standards and are aiming to have a core list of 90 standards for use by both Defence and Defence industry when engaging on simulation. Akhurst acknowledges that this number will grow as standards globally grow, with related industries such as serious gaming becoming more prevalent in the Defence realm.
The useability of the list will rely on two measurement frameworks: publisher status (active, draft, inactive and superseded) and defence status (emerging, proposed, active, obsolete and depreciated - depends on whether its actually being used in defence).
ADSTC can now help to identify which standards defence users will need to use thanks to updated repository and greater understanding of applicability.
Ackhurst was keen to stress that the ADSTC is not a technical authority with the power to mandate which standard is actually used in any given program. Their role is more about educating Defence users such as capability managers and CDG staff about which standards are appropriate to them.
Simulation health checks
As part of the new advisory role of the ADSTC, all programs before they head for first pass must have sign off from ADSTC for a ‘simulation healthcheck’.
This will be part of the document set that must be completed in order to be submitted. Once again, Ackhurst admitted that standards may change and be redefined during the capability development cycle given the long timeline that projects can face and that program offices need to be mindful of this, but will have ADSTC support throughout the process.
The list of standards will be available on ADSTC website as will not be a classified list.