Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/476674
C C4iSR 22 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015 www.vanguardcanada.com that communication channel and there have been improvements in this sharing of information, but I think we are not as mature as some other countries yet. We still have room to grow there. Q When you are working with a military that is developing capability internally, perhaps at diff erent rates, how do you ad- dress integration issues? Not an easy question to answer. In essence we become very de- pendent on the customer to facilitate these integration issues. We rely on our customer to "bridge" that gap and facilitate access by providing documentation and, at times, even facilities in their laboratories to tests the solutions. Government (customer) fur- nished information and equipment becomes a key tool to address these integration issues. Q One of the points of emphasis at recent CAF Outlooks has been a need for functionality and ease of use in C4ISR applica- tions, rather than the latest technology. How do you balance the needs of the customer with the desire of your engineers and designers? It's a happy mix. You're right that they will say they don't al- ways want the latest and greatest, but I think the specifi cations they provide are sometimes very futuristic and pushing the laws of physics on where they want to go. That isn't so bad because it provides industry with a good vision of the capability they are try- ing to achieve. Sometimes it can be a little Star Wars-ish, but you have to applaud their forward thinking. Ten years ago when we'd develop applications with a map, ev- eryone would say: "I want it to be Google Earth-like." Now it's tablets. People are used to using smartphones and tablets, so if you can relate an application to what they are using in their day- to-day lives, we have guys who are very skilled in doing that while maintaining the speciality of what they are doing for the military environment. If we can integrate swipe-type technology into a military application these days, we will spend a bit of time to do that, because it will reduce the training needs of the customer and reduce skill fade. We have human factors engineers – interface design specialists – who will spend a lot of time with the customer trying to understand how they do their job. Q The army has acknowledged a challenge with using the C4ISR systems it already has to their fullest capability because of insuffi cient training. Could you better embed training into these applications? Absolutely. Industry can help in this area. It's an area where the acquisition process – or how the specs are defi ned – is, at many times, poor. Training often takes a "back seat" to capability and will lose in the prioritization battle – they'll choose functional- ity over training. I believe the air force and navy are stronger at identifying and including embedded training than the army has traditionally been. Industry certainly has many ideas here on how to help in this capability. Q Most customers are facing budget restraints and have to make certain tradeoff s. Are you helping guide those conversa- tions about technology evolution and what's suffi cient to meet requirements? A few years ago when the Canadian Army was heavily involved in land operations in Afghanistan, the conversations were around their pressing needs, and sometimes they were forced to make compromises based on their immediate needs. Because we are in- vesting a lot of money in R&D, I think we are well position to understand key technologies and say, here are where the develop- ment trends are going. Or, there is a new way to do this that is more effi cient. We try and recommend architecture decisions to them and support those with R&D trends that are based on in- dustry standards and industry evolutions. The mature customer understands that there will be a change in technology every X months, so they factor that into their lifecycle material costs. You certainly want to have a roadmap for swapping out and replacing obsolescence with new technology. But the fl ip side is, just because Apple came out with the iPad 5, do you re- ally need to go from the 4 to the 5 right away? There has to be that refl ection done internally and there are a lot of models that can help the customer understand when they need to make those decisions. Q What C4ISR trend line(s) would you like to see evolve? What I'd like to see is a closer exchange of vision between cus- tomer needs and industry capability. I would like to see more of a trust-trust relationship between the two entities, and maybe even an industrial strategy supporting Canadian industry. I think that a lot of work has been done in that area but there is still room for improvement. The key industrial capabilities (KICs) from the Jen- kins report are a good start and need to be continually nurtured. We have a lot of smart guys in industry who are really pushing the bleeding edge of technology and what can be achieved, so open channel communications is important. If we can maintain that trend, capability will continue to follow.