Simulation: JP3028 market survey tests respondents | ADM May 2010
Gregor Ferguson | Sydney
Joint Project 3028 - Defence Simulation Program is approaching a major milestone later this year, enabled by last month's market survey which closed on 22 April.
The project will see delivery of $500-$800 million-worth of simulation and experimentation products and services to support capability development, force planning, collective training and wider ADF objectives, starting from about 2017.
The market survey, released on 6 April by the DG Simulation, Dr Mike Brennan, was designed to solicit what he termed Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) costs from industry for a range of services, equipment and capabilities.
It's understood a private sector firm, Canberra-based Project Outcomes, will analyse the responses on behalf of ADSO.
ADM understands that the firm's raw analysis will go back to ADSO for refinement into a series of options which are due to go before an options review committee in August.
This process will help inform the business case presented to the Commonwealth for 1st Pass Approval which Brennan said will take place "late in FY2011/2012".
Program focus
JP3028 isn't designed to acquire the dedicated and sometimes highly expensive crew and maintenance training devices associated with new capital equipment such as the Air Warfare Destroyer, JSF, Super Hornet and the like.
These are designed to teach and maintain operator skills and will generally continue to be acquired under the aegis of the relevant capital equipment acquisition or upgrade projects.
Instead, JP3028 is focussed on the more diffuse and fragmented "enabling" simulation, experimentation, networking and related capabilities set out in the ADF's Defence Simulation Roadmap.
Published in 2006, this is due for a refresh and Defence sources say the revised version will be circulated within Defence for comment by July this year; ADM understands early exposure drafts have already been circulated.
Defence has provided no guidance on how the DMO will contract for the various services and capabilities sought under JP3028.
Whether or not these are put out to open competition or kept within the Simulation Support Services Standing Offer (S4O) Panel is yet to be determined; as a panel member, Project Outcomes won the contract to carry out the market survey analysis task for ADSO.
The DCP estimates an acquisition cost for JP3028 of between $500 and $1,500 million (towards the lower end of the band) with an ACAT complexity level of 2 (High) for Project Management Complexity, Schedule and Technical Difficulty.
Interestingly, Operations and Support are estimated at ACAT Level 3 (Moderate) while Commercial risk is considered High at ACAT Level 2.
This undoubtedly reflects the fact that the Market Survey includes nearly 200 separate capability and equipment requirements, ranging from maintenance training devices to an Army synthetic environment which provides predictive results, to a capability which enables simulation interoperability by following "a documented process for integration (eg data standards, formats, security considerations)."
That last item addresses a core issue for Defence's simulation community: the development of common terrain, environment and sensor data bases for use across the entire simulation community and a Simulation Data Management and Standards environment which will enable all or most of Defence's simulation inventory to be networked.
At some point Defence will need to make a determination on the database formats and standards it needs.
This may displease some industry players whose proprietary systems miss out, but will be an essential enabler of the sort of outcomes JP3028 has been created to deliver.
If you leave aside simulators designed to train air crews, tank gunners and the like, the capabilities sought under JP3028 are described in outline in the Defence Simulation Roadmap.
The Market Survey reflects its intent (and presumably also that of the forthcoming edition) in setting out eight simulation Application Areas: Training, Force Assessment, Experimentation, Research and Development, Capability Life Cycle Management, Crisis Management and Planning, Mission Rehearsal, and Conduct of Operations.
Embracing simulation
In each case, the Defence organisation as a whole is encouraged, even instructed, to embrace simulation at various levels to support these functions - as a modelling and visualisation tool, to conduct mission rehearsal, as a means of experimenting with different equipment or organisations, as a means of developing concepts of operation long before a new equipment enters service (‘pre-adaptation' in the jargon), and to develop, test and refine processes and procedures for organisations and leaders.
This is why common databases and standards are so important: so that diverse and dispersed users can come together in permanent or ad hoc networks safe in the knowledge they are looking at the same picture through the same ‘eyes'.
Developing a networked force will require networked simulators and experiments, possibly spanning many of the gaps between services and technical domains.
In an ideal world, a force development experiment would employ a range of models and simulations as well as high-fidelity platform training devices such as the Wedgetail or Super Hornet or Tiger ARH simulators to develop greater insights into cause, effect and human and equipment behaviours.
At present, however, the diversity of the ADF's simulator inventory makes this difficult.
There are several different virtual representations of Shoalwater Bay training area, for example, each one developed using a different set of databases to suit a different requirement or simulator visual system; some of these are not useable by other simulator types.
Why not migrate to an environment where simulator and models are based on a common standard and format which allows them to be used safely by all defence operators for all modelling, experimentation and training functions?
This was one of the aims of the now-defunct Joint Synthetic Environment program a few years ago; JP3028 could the mechanism to make it happen, say industry sources, but it will need some consistent, and occasionally insistent, high level leadership to make it happen.
Broader ADF goals
JP3028 embraces the simulation and experimentation capabilities which will support the broader, force-wide goals of the ADF's Capability Managers and Commander Joint Operations (CJOPS, Outcome 1 - Employing the Force), of its Capability Development Group (Outcome 2 - Developing the Force) and of funding and sustaining the activities of its simulation governance organisation (Outcome 3 - Simulation Governance).
These are set out in the current Roadmap, which contains a number of objective Target States to be achieved at five year intervals - Vision 2011, Vision 2016 and Vision 2021, respectively.
While the goals are understood not to have changed significantly, Defence acknowledges that changes since the Roadmap was published in 2006, including the 2009 White Paper and DCP and the Strategic Reform Program (SRP), "have prompted Defence to revisit some of the milestones to achieve efficiencies and cost effectiveness dividends.
"These will be covered in the revised Roadmap," ADM was told.
Of most immediate interest, the Vision 2011 goals focused on three outcomes, according to Defence:
• Employing the Force (‘Simulation is an accepted and expected contributor to Joint level activities');
• Developing the Force (‘Planning and use of Simulation is consistently repeated in early Capability Life Cycle processes'); and
• Simulation Governance (‘Simulation is managed as a capability, integrating all fundamental inputs').
Cultural Change (‘Defence managers shift to automatically consider Simulation as an integral part of the business of Defence') is a fourth desired outcome, ADM was told, albeit with a 10-year timeframe.
"With respect to ‘Employing the Force', this goal has been recognised in CDF directives on joint training and the establishment of the Joint and Combined Training Capability (JCTC).
"Integration of Simulation into joint planning and decision making will follow.
"With respect to ‘Developing the Force', Simulation Support is a significant feature of single service concept development and experimentation.
"Defence expects that the Joint Decision Support Centre (JDSC) will facilitate the use of a joint synthetic environment for joint experimentation from the latter part of 2010.
" The ongoing success of this venture will depend on JP 3028 Ph.1 managing the joint synthetic environment.
"With respect to ‘Simulation Governance'," a Defence source added, "JP 3028 Ph.1 will be the key catalyst for establishing simulation as a managed capability across the Fundamental Inputs to Capability (FIC).
Market survey
The Market Survey's breakdown of JP3028 defence simulation requirements treats these desired outcomes as three separate ‘missions': Simulation Support for Defence Business Functions, which includes things like maintenance training; Providing Governance of the Defence Simulation Capability; and Managing the Defence Simulation Capability.
Industry has welcomed the Market Survey cautiously, but warned ADM the quality of Project Outcomes' analysis will be a function of the quality of the industry responses which are a function in turn of the very limited time available to provide a considered response.
The original deadline was 14 April, but this was extended by a week.
There is strong support within industry for the aims of JP3028, and especially for the Market Survey goals relating to governance and management of the defence simulation capability - these are "noble and achievable" in the words of one source.
But there was some disquiet over the list of requirements for Simulation Support for Defence Business Functions - are these overly-ambitious, wonder some industry sources?
They aren't spelled out in great detail or with any contextual guidance, and many seem to overlap with requirements which are already being met by training devices and services supplied by local firms as part of larger capital equipment programs.
Furthermore, while they address specifically-enunciated Army and Navy needs, they appear not to address specific Air Force needs, except in the context of Governance.
The danger is that the lack of context informing the 100 or more Simulation Support for Defence Business Functions requirements in the market survey will trigger a mass of responses which are hard to assess and then relate to specific needs.
Industry sources told ADM it's hard to see the progression from the market survey to a set of discrete work packages which can be put out to tender, undergo an evaluation and contract negotiation process and then brought into service starting in 2017.
As the DCP notes dryly, the commercial risks in this project are ‘High'.
Change champion
Given the looming presence of the SRP some industry sources have also wondered if the budget for JP3028 could come under threat as it is a somewhat amorphous program of considerable complexity which may be difficult to justify or ‘sell' in the face of competing projects with more visible and easily justifiable outcomes.
However, it also has a powerful advocate in the Vice Chief of the Defence Force, LTGEN David Hurley, who has championed the wider adoption of experimentation, modelling and simulation by the ADF and wider Defence organisation as a means of achieving better outcomes (including value for money) and, potentially a source of savings.
ADSO now comes directly under Hurley as part of the VCDF's Joint Capability Coordination Division.
This suggests that JP3028 and the revised Defence Simulation Roadmap will maintain the ADF's focus on adopting simulation technology to enhance and streamline many of its basic processes, and that the budget for this fundamentally important project is secure.