DMO News: Working with industry to achieve reform | ADM Dec 2010/Jan 2011

At the invitation of the CEO Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) Dr Stephen Gumley, a series of regular roundtable discussions with the CEOs of Australia’s major Defence industry companies commenced in July 2009.

The companies currently represented are Australian Aerospace, Raytheon, Thales, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Saab, CEA Technologies, Qantas Defence Services, Boeing, Sikorsky and ASC.

Through the Principles, it has been agreed by the CEO’s that they will work in partnership to identify and implement reform initiatives and ensure that innovation is encouraged and lessons learned are shared across the organisations.

It is this focus on working collaboratively that is the hallmark of the agreement – underpinned by support for constant and positive communication of the SRP goals throughout the companies, DMO and the ADF.

The success of the Defence Strategic Reform Program (SRP) will rely on the ADF, DMO and industry stakeholders working in partnership to deliver one of the most transformational programs of reform undertaken in Australia.

The SRP is about engaging in broad ranging innovation across all areas of Defence through identifying savings and re-investing the savings in future capability.

The next phase of the reform program is to work with industry to develop a range of ‘pilot projects’ that engage Industry, the Capability Managers and DMO staff and will show case the lessons learnt from the reform program.

To support the work needed to develop the projects and share the lessons learnt, a Smart Sustainment Steering Forum has been established.

Currently proposals from within Defence and industry are being examined as potential pilots.

The key to success for these proposals relies on the early engagement of all key stakeholders to understand and champion the reforms that may emerge from individual pilots.

Pilots that are able to produce outcomes that are transferrable across other Defence capabilities are significantly more attractive from a broader SRP perspective; however, this does not preclude pilots in niche areas from being proposed.

The agreed principles are as follows:

• We recognise the need for reform to deliver savings in military equipment sustainment in order to fund future defence capabilities and are jointly committed to succeed.

• Capability, quality and safety will not be compromised.• Savings will be genuine and will not transfer costs and risks to other areas or to later years.

• We will be open and transparent in implementing SRP subject to normal commercial constraints.

Together we will explore all avenues on both sides of contracts to reduce program and process costs, and streamline and improve decision-making.

• We will work in partnership to identify and implement reform initiatives.

• We will ensure that innovation is encouraged and lessons learned are shared across our organisations to maximise the potential to realise the intent and savings targets required under the SRP.

• We will support constant and positive communication of SRP goals throughout our organisations.

• Reasonable profit will be maintained when initiatives are agreed that include reducing costs to create the savings needed to achieve the SRP.

• Contracts will, where appropriate, include incentives to encourage long term behaviour which minimises costs and maximises effectiveness.

Old dogs, new tricks - SimTecT

Many people know that VBS2 originated as Operation Flashpoint, a first person shooter game designed for and marketed in the entertainment industry a little over a decade ago.

It was then modified into a serious game for military training use, being adopted by the US Marine Corp and then the Australian Army within a few years. 

As a training tool, VBS2 offers realistic battlefield simulations, with air, land and sea vehicles and extensive terrain.

For trainers, real time scenario editing provides dynamic training scenarios.

While this is not altogether new for defence, it was of great interest to the Mining Industry Skills Centre (MISC) when they developed a tool to support the training of risk assessment skills in their Generic Induction program.

To provide some context, MISC has been a quality champion for mining industry safety inductions for as long as VBS has been in the military.

A small non-profit organisation, MISC developed the Generic Induction course, and associated governance models, and licenses registered training organisation to deliver the program across Australia.  

A mandatory entry requirement for many mine sites in Queensland, MISC’s Generic Induction course turns over in excess of $22 million annually in training costs in Queensland alone.

In 2007 a significant research project undertaken by MISC identified that trainers, and the mining industry in general, had slipped into a ‘death-by-PowerPoint’ approach to educating new employees about the occupational risks on mine sites – a training approach that was failing to meet employer expectations of safe work practices.

After attending SimTecT in 2007, MISC recognised serious gaming as a lever for re-educating trainers, and re-engaging trainees in a mission to improve the industry’s safety culture.

Due to the prescriptive legislation governing mining operations, it was critical that the implementation of serious gaming into induction training could provide reassurance to mining executives of its validity as a training approach.

A review of available gaming engines resulted in the selection of VBS2 for two reasons:

a. VBS2 has a military heritage – after all, which mining executive would strongly argue that their site is more dangerous than Afghanistan or Iraq?

If it’s credible within the Australian and US Defence Forces, it should be credible the mining industry.

b. MISC had no experience in defining requirements to build a tool from scratch.

VBS2 had all the required capabilities (and some), it just needed to look different.

VBS2 was seen as a rapid pathway to achieving MISCs goals.In a little over four months, with QinetiQ Australia as the development contractor, MISC made some very basic modifications to VBS2 (terrain, vehicles, objects, characters and scripts) to produce three mining scenarios for teaching risk assessment skills to new and experienced workers right across the industry.

Project Canary was launched in March 2009 and showcased at SimTecT that year. 

During 2009 and 2010, MISC has rolled out Project Canary to Australian and international resources industry customers.

The project has achieved its purpose of dramatically changing trainers’ understandings of learning, and inspired improvement in training practices.

It has gone as far as influencing regulators and safety experts’ views about the industry’s safety culture and their role in driving appropriate culture.

What MISC produced is quite unsophisticated in military terms, however it delivered a resounding message: VBS2 can be used for non-combat training.