Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/304887
S SYSTEMS INTEGRATION 18 APRIL/MAY 2014 www.vanguardcanada.com with risk, and has way more knock on effects then you would like. If it is designed in, it is part of the system architecture and much more effective. For GD, we have recognized security as a cornerstone of how we operate. Information must get there and it must be secure, and you must be able to trust it. So it is part of the way we think about a system from the very beginning – it's never an add-on. Q How does that apply to partners who bring a widget into your system? I think they are learning, and many of them readily adapt to that environment because they see what we see – it makes the most sense. Q Given that complexity and the need for flexibility, how do you then cost programs for a customer that increasingly needs things well defined? This isn't meant to sound cliché: an experienced customer is our best customer. They have an appreciation for the things that could happen. A customer who accepts a low-cost solution just because someone says it will work, that is a risk. You don't know what you don't know, so the more experience you have and the wider range of programs and types of customers you have served, the fewer "unknown unknowns" you have. I think there are things we can do better to help that customer. One of the projects I have been involved with is the use of op- erational and system architecture. The idea of architecture as a practice and a discipline, where you capture all the bits and pieces and represent the mission in various architectural views – all the subsystems and all the technical characteristics – that is a powerful way to help both the delivery agents and all the partners and the end customer appreciate the complexity. It adds an ability to cre- ate transparency in what you are trying to do. Q What are some of the biggest challenges SoS integrators regularly encounter? We've touched on this, but one obvious challenge is being able to integrate with legacy systems. The army's Combat Net Radio is a good example where we have been able to take a legacy radio and essentially make it like new by virtue of a lower cost upgrade as opposed to a brand new radio. That is the type of challenge we will face over the next decade because I don't think we are going to spend a ton more on buying new systems. We've got to make the stuff we have last a little longer while delivering the right ca- pability to the end user. The other thing is ensuring that the end user doesn't just grab the next shinny "bit." That shinny object might not have had human factors designed in, might not have been built with evo- lutionary development over time, and it might create emergent behaviours that are undesirable. That's not necessarily a customer problem. In fairness, we all want the next shiny thing. It's our ability to ensure that we know how to evolve technology and make it effective for the end user that matters most. Q Elsewhere in this issue, we have an interview with Colonel Steve Hall on the army's C4ISR developments. One of his larg- est challenges is education and training. That would seem to be a common problem as new and legacy systems are integrated. I think what Colonel Hall seems to be experiencing is analogous to bolting it on at the end – oh yeah, we'd better do some train- ing. One of the ways to get incrementally to where it appears he wants to go would be to make a trained operator part of the procurement. So understanding what capacities are required to operate any one system or the entire SoS needs to be designed in just like everything else, as opposed to here, we've got something, now we will go train you on it. I do think in the longer term there will be less and less need for the training paradigm of today. People will just do it out of the box. It will be intuitive. All the things we are learning about how humans interact with technology are helping us design technol- ogy, tailored for the way humans interact with it. There is a great story about a kid who got an iPad for Christmas, set it aside, and a three-year-old picked it up and was playing a game within a few minutes. There is something about that class of device that is in- tuitive. That is a beacon on the horizon that will one day address Colonel Hall's problem…I think it's centred in the idea that you don't need a manual; it's just obvious how to use it. Q Partners may contribute to the complexity of SoS, but they are key to delivering capability. What's the role of GD's EDGE Innovation Network in helping identifying them? We did an analysis and over a million innovators are part of the network, and that was a conservative estimate when you consider the number of companies involved. The EDGE is a mechanism by which we get privileged exposure to companies all across Canada, and for that matter around the world, that are doing very unique things, companies that we wouldn't necessarily bump into. Some of them have innovative technologies or capability that can help ratchet a program to the next level. For some of these companies, they are now touching an international market through GD that they probably would not have been able to reach on their own – it's a classic "win-win" relationship. What is also unique is that you generate diversity of thought. You generate the opportunity to interact with people who may not be in GD Canada employees in the Integration lab used for the Aurora Incremental Modernization Project.