Vanguard Magazine

36 APRIL/MAY 2018 www.vanguardcanada.com A s a maritime country with a coastline extending for over 200,000 kilometres and encircled by waters on three sides, Canada has a vested stake in ships. These vessels play an important role, not only in maintaining sovereignty, but search and rescue efforts, surveillance, seaborne transportation and logistics. For ships to continue performing such an indispensable role, new technology must be adopted. Such adoption is revo- lutionizing ship design and operations in the shipbuilding industry for all types of vessels, whether for commerce, private or defence use. Green technology, new soft- ware, autonomous systems, are all chang- ing the industry, and if not correctly de- veloped and adopted, the marine industry will be left behind. At the fifth annual Shipbuilding Tech- nology Forum held recently in Ottawa, this subject was examined. "This year's theme – Agility through Technology – recognizes what is essential about a ship; it is about what's on the inside," said Terri Pavelic, editor-in-chief of Van- guard. As the leading trade journal for the defence and security industry in Canada, Vanguard hosted Shipbuilding Technol- ogy Forum 2018 at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa on March 1 with over 150 in at- tendance. "The goal of our event is to facilitate dialogue and share lessons learned from industry, government and military per- spectives," added Pavelic. "Canada has all the pieces to build a strong foundation to be a competitive player within the global marine industries." In Canada's new defence policy – Strong, Secure, Engaged – innovation is highly embraced. This document, which was released last year, announced the Innova- tion for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program. According to this re- port, the program will "establish research clusters to stimulate collaboration and the free flow of ideas that are so critical to in- novation." In speaking during his opening key- note address, Chris Brosinsky, Director of IDEaS, said that the program "is a funda- mental step that DND is taking in bring- ing innovation to the defence industry." Through this policy, Canada will invest $1.6 billion in innovation over two de- cades with over $300 million in the first five years. To get IDEaS going, Brosin- sky outlined four principles. The first is termed "fail fast, learn fast", where a lot of different things will be tried. "It is about fostering the best ideas and moving on with those that work," he said. Another principle is agile business-process propos- al, selection and engagement. It is about bringing expertise and academia along with CAF members into the same room to talk about problems and solutions while reducing the administrative burden of connecting. The multi-disciplinary ap- proach is another principle, where every party involved needs to understand the issues and challenges. And the fourth principle, building on the notion that the hardest problems attract the best ideas, is about creating an environment to bring in stakeholders who have the best solutions. Continuing in the vein of innovation and technology, Pierre Chartier, Innova- tion Management Advisor for the Build in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP), gave an overview of this program. "Par- ticipating in BCIP is a win-win for both industry and the Government of Canada," said Chartier. Industry benefits by getting shipbuilding teCh Forum ExpERts paint innovation and EmERging tEChnologiEs piCtuRE at shipbuilding teCh Forum MARCH 1, 2018 SHIPBUILDING TECHNOLOGY FORUM by marCello sukhdeo

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