Industry Skilling: PIC-ing at the Systems Integration challenge | ADM August 2011
Gregor Ferguson | Sydney
One of the Priority Industry Capabilities (PIC) identified by Defence is high end system and ‘system of systems’ integration. This capability, or rather the lack of it, is the rock on which many defence capital projects have foundered and is fundamental to the delivery of ADF capability in the future.
Prof Stephen Cook of the Defence Systems Innovation Centre (DSIC) and Director of the University of South Australia’s Defence & Systems Institute recently led a study of Australian industry’s Systems Engineering (SE) and Systems Integration (SI) skills, assets and capabilities. The study found Australian industry wanting in several key respects with findings presented at the SETE 2011 systems engineering conference in Canberra this year.
Defence defines the Systems Integration PIC (including ‘Systems of Systems’) as “the ability to integrate complex systems onboard ADF platforms and conduct ‘system of systems’ integration of off-the-shelf capabilities into the ADF’s command and control networks. This capability is essential to choose a mix of the best systems for the ADF, without relying on specific products and solutions offered by overseas suppliers. It is also essential to deliver the ADF’s Network Centric Warfare vision.”
The study involved a survey of the 12 companies that embody the vast majority of Australia’s industry SE and SI capabilities to produce a ‘snap shot’ of industry’s capabilities by integration level, environmental domain and technology area. This resulted in a ‘gap analysis’ and subsequent development of a set of strategies and recommendations to close the gaps and enhance industry’s capabilities generally.
The companies surveyed were ASC, plus its subsidiary Deep Blue Technology; QinetiQ Australia; BAE Systems Australia; Raytheon Australia; Boeing Defence Australia; SAAB Technologies Australia; Jacobs Australia; SMS Management Services; Lockheed-Martin Australia; SYPAQ Systems; Nova Defence; and Thales Australia. Between them these companies employ some 3,445 personnel engaged in SE or SI activities. Of these, over 50 per cent were employed in just two companies.
The research found that the majority of SE/SI personnel (34 per cent) work predominantly at the subsystems level, with minor systems and equipment levels accounting for a further 31 per cent. The major platforms level accounts for 22 per cent of this workforce and the system of systems (SoS) level a relatively low 13 per cent.
The companies’ technical areas of SE/SI expertise are overwhelmingly dominated (82 per cent) by electronic systems, broken down as C3I (34 per cent), sensors (25 per cent), combat systems (essentially for maritime platforms - 10 per cent), simulation and training systems (six per cent), and Electronic Warfare (five per cent). These, in turn are all either PICs or strategic industry capabilities (SICs), which highlights the fundamental importance of a healthy SE and SI community of practice within Australia’s defence industry.
Importantly, SE/SI support at the pre-second pass stage of major projects was found to be very low, with only three per cent of the SE/SI capability identified in the survey directed at the vital SE/SI activities recognised as needed in the early stages of projects (CONOPS and requirements development, design, architectures, trade-off studies, etc, (Elm et al, 2008)). Of the pre-second pass SI activity identified, the C4ISR SI sector (42 per cent) environmental domain dominates with smaller levels of SI in support of maritime (26 per cent) and air (21 per cent). There was little pre-second pass SI identified for land.
The study also identified industry plans to grow SE/SI capacity by 40 per cent over the next five years. This corresponds to an increase of SE/SI personnel of almost 1400 people.
Unsurprisingly, one of their findings also was that Defence needs commensurate SE and SI skills in order to be a smart customer and to identify appropriate development and acquisition strategies for complex projects.
To quote from the paper:
“Most of the respondents indicated that they believed that the overall national SE/SI capability was well below the required levels. This was seen as a major cause of cost, schedule and performance problems in a large number of complex projects. One senior engineering manager who possessed considerable overseas experience stated that, ‘At platform level, few people have done an entire platform and can understand the risk.’ ”
It was his view that without such experience it is difficult to prepare a meaningful bid for a project of that type, especially in a fixed-price contracting environment.
“There was general agreement that the amount of SI in the early stages (pre-Second Pass) of complex projects was lower than required to effectively identify and manage key risks and to enable sound engineering design,” Professor Cook said.
Relating this directly to the ADF’s own development goals, he reported, “The project-centric nature of defence contracting was seen as detrimental to the development of an integrated NCW enabled ADF.
“There was a perception that ‘Defence is not a mature SI client’ and that it undervalued the need for SE/SI in complex projects. As a result, it was noted by many companies that it is difficult to tender for the true cost of SE/SI as this was seen as making tenders uncompetitive. This was reported as a concern because the industry engineers believed that appropriate investment in SE/SI would reduce overall project costs.”
The study made six recommendations. These include de-risking large, complex projects by increasing the level of pre-Second Pass SE/SI, and using more flexible contracting mechanisms prior to completion of preliminary design; developing strategies for developing and retaining industry SE/SI personnel; increasing the effort in cross-project and force-level integration to address system of systems capability challenges; developing a proper strategic plan for the SE/SI PIC; and improving reach back to overseas parent companies, if necessary using government to government channels to facilitate this.
The key is a strategic, integrated approach by Defence which recognises the importance of industry’s SE/SI skills base and sets out deliberately to sustain and grow it. Without an aware customer for these capabilities industry can’t support the full range required by itself.
References – the following papers can be downloaded from the DSIC web site: www.dsic.com.au:
1. Elm J.P., Goldenson D.R., El Eman K., Donatelli N., & Neisa A., 2008, A Survey of Systems Engineering Effectiveness – Initial Results, CMU/SEI-2008-SR-034, SEI and NDIA.
2. Unewisse M and Cook S.C., 2011, “A survey of defence systems engineering and systems integration capability: Part 1 Research Design and Quantitative Results”, SETE 2011, SESA.
3. Cook S.C. and Unewisse M., 2011, “A survey of defence systems engineering and systems integration capability: Part 2 Qualitative Results and Survey Findings”, SETE 2011, SESA
Subject: Defence Policy