DTS Paper.qxp - Royal Aeronautical Society

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assurance (capabilities which are to be retained onshore as they provide technologies or equipment important to safeguard the state, e.g. nuclear deterrent); defence capability (where the MoD requires particular assurance of continued and consistent equipment performance); and strategic influence (in military, diplomatic or industrial terms), as well as recognising potential technology benefits attached to these which have wider value. 5 6. But as the DIS makes clear, even where the MoD would like an industrial capability to be sustained in the UK for strategic reasons, that does not necessarily preclude global competition in that sector for some projects. The MoD cannot afford to maintain a complete cradle-to-grave industrial base in all areas. Industry also will make independent investment decisions and an important indigenous capability as a result may disappear. Equally, the MoD does not aim to restrict the scope for international co-operation and competition where this is appropriate. The DIS does not seek to set out a preferred route to international restructuring. This is to be left to industry. Nor does it set out a preferred route to international restructuring as this will also be left to Industry. What is missing is a clear view or even some indication from the MoD of its vision for the future in terms of general structure of the UK Defence Industrial Base. The MoD has provided elements of a strategy but it has not looked forward through the next 10-15 years to assess the consequences. This would have provided an additional and vital perspective for Industry’s future. Defence is a long-term business and can change rapidly as circumstances change but a view, however tentative from Industry’s major customer, would have helped companies to understand the long-term strategic direction of the MoD. Total Life Cycle Management, partnership and a new business model 7. A key feature of the new policy is the adoption of a partnership approach to both equipment development and production that fully embraces TLCM concepts. The DTS will also increasingly require industry to accept a greater share of the risk of applied research and technology demonstration. The MoD has recognised the limitations of a pure competition centric model of defence procurement. The role of competition to encourage efficiency and value for money remains important but only when appropriate. Instead, the MoD is to develop long-term partnerships with major companies, primarily though not exclusively with traditional prime contractors. This reflects in part the rapid changes in the defence industrial environment since the end of the Cold War, especially the increasing globalisation of defence companies and the importance of civil technology to modern defence systems, particularly in the areas of electronics and information technology. Changing times will force the adoption of new business models on the part of both supplier and customer. 8. Moving the focus of procurement from delivering a simple ‘end product’ to a fully supported product life cycle implies a radical change in the UK defence business model and a different approach to extracting the best return economically and industrially from national investment in defence procurement. UK industry should have no illusions that this will have a profound impact on much of the supply chain whose role in supporting and upgrading equipment may be limited, or where the size of individual companies precludes the necessary investment to adapt to the new business model. 9. The UK defence industry from top to bottom cannot expect to remain unaffected by these developments. Over the past two decades, the UK has fully embraced interdependence in many 5 DIS Section A5. 6 Aerospace and the UK Defence Industry and Technology Strategy critical areas of defence procurement with the aerospace sector leading the way through successive generations of international collaboration. The UK defence aerospace sector is irrevocably linked to a global network of design, development and production. This has entailed a loss of autonomous capability to produce complete aerospace systems, but collaboration and other international links have allowed the maintenance of an overall capability that otherwise would have been unsustainable based on the UK market alone. 3.0 THE DTS — A 25-YEAR OUTLOOK 10. It has become part of the conventional wisdom that, without an adequate technology base, UK-located defence capabilities will decline and its industry fall behind in a globalising defence market. It is equally obvious that, in a period of transition from platform to network enabled technologies the UK should invest even more in the defence technology base and to integrate the opportunities afforded by commercial technology streams. The DTS follows several recent initiatives to improve the planning and delivery of defence technology acquisition. For example there has been an improvement in the co-ordination of aerospace R&D as exemplified by the development of a National Aerospace Technology Strategy as one of the recommendations of the DTI Aerospace Innovation and Growth Team (AeIGT) report. 11. Such developments, if followed through, will bring real benefits to the UK defence industrial base. Indeed, the MoD intends to utilise and, if appropriate, participate in AeIGT programmes. However, these sentiments will come to naught without adequate funding. The MoD has recently begun to address some years of relative neglect in this respect. Failure to maintain commitments in this area would nullify all of the good work entailed in setting out a comprehensive defence industrial strategy. 12. Equally, early investment in technology increases the confidence in predicting the cost and performance of new programmes to the overall benefit of the procurement process. Reducing the length of time expended in developing new equipment also depends upon a steady introduction of new technology through a process of incremental development drawing from a continual stream of defence specific as well as civil technological innovation. This is explored at some length in the DIS and echoes similar findings based on US experience and analysis. Again, the test of good intentions will be in changing practices and fully applying the lessons of past procurement. Most important, the customer will have to resist the dual temptations of demanding too much at the outset of a new programme and of interfering in the process of development to capture the latest example of new technology. 13. The DTS recognises the clear correlation between the absolute level of national investment in research and development and the quality of military equipment. The UK has an advanced defence technology base, second only to the US, albeit at some distance. This is the result of investments made over the past 20-25 years and has allowed the UK to play a leading role in European collaboration and has facilitated a very effective relationship with the US. As a guide to policy, the MoD has set the target of matching the world’s major defence exporting nations. 6 14. The MoD will continue to invest in the most challenging, longterm aspects of defence science and technology but will increasingly expect industry to fund a substantial share of applied and demonstrator technology. Increased collaboration with allies (primarily the US and selected European countries) and the 6 DTS Section A2.
oader national science base will also figure in future planning. However, the DTS’s primary goal is to identify those areas of defence science and technology essential to maintain national sovereign capability, provide maximum leverage in strategic terms and provide the most overall technology benefit to the UK. In many sectors, the main focus is on through life management where the MoD will primarily invest in technologies designed to facilitate upgrading and long-term affordability. This includes commitment to developing open systems and systems architectures that will enable greater long-term flexibility and adaptability. In many cases the MoD intends to retain control over critical systems architectures. 4.0 CROSS-CUTTING CAPABILITIES TECHNOLOGIES 15. The MoD will seek to maximise returns from its investment, looking to derive multiple use from research. In this respect, the DTS puts considerable emphasis on cross-cutting technologies that will have the greatest impact across the range of defence equipment sectors. These are: ■ Sensors and countermeasures ■ Information exploitation ■ Human factors ■ Platforms and structures ■ The physical environment ■ Technologies to enable Through Life Capability Management (TLCM) Many of the individual technologies under this heading will be of relevance to aerospace — for example, simulation technologies have a priority in the human factors area. However, increased dependence on commercial sources, again noted in the simulation case, might place UK firms at a disadvantage if foreign competitors continue to receive funding through national defence and civil R&D budgets. 16. C4ISTAR is also identified as a cross-cutting technology because of its role in most of the individual sectors and its centrality to delivering the MoD’s Network Enabling Capability (NEC). This is by definition a complex system of systems in which the aerospace element strictly defined is limited to the provision of aircraft and satellite platforms. There is no need automatically to buy these from a UK supplier unless there is a specific technological value in integrating platform with equipment and sub systems. The DIS, for example, recognises this in relation to micro satellites where the UK has a strong niche capability. 17. Systems Engineering and Integration is rightly afforded prominence in the DIS. This capability is at the top of the defence industrial value chain. UK industry has a wide and deep set of capabilities across a wide-range of defence applications. On shore systems engineering and integration afford vital access points for high value UK-based equipment suppliers and will be essential in facilitating UK-based up grading and support. The DIS also reiterates the view that such skills are not monopolised by the traditional prime contractors but are possessed, perhaps more relevantly, by high-level equipment and IT companies. The key caveat must be whether the UK has sufficient systems engineers to meet these requirements. Nor is it clear from either the DIS or the DTS how the MoD intends to fund ‘systems integration’ R&D. By definition, such activity tends to be of a ‘one-off’ nature and thus a business case for industry investment is difficult to make. One approach used in the commercial world could be for the MoD and industry to work together to formulate the requirements for an MoD system to incorporate technologies for which an industry investment case could then be created. Procuring the Typhoon (above) and the JSF has removed the requirement “for the UK to design and build a future generation of manned fast jet aircraft for the foreseeable future.” 5.0 AEROSPACE IN THE DIS AND DTS 18. For the aerospace sector (here defined as fixed wing, rotary wing, complex weapons, airborne mission systems, and some space elements), the DIS and DTS present some major challenges as well as some important opportunities. The continuing vital role of airpower, precision weapons and the C4ISTAR functions facilitated by air and space platforms are reiterated at length by the DIS and DTS. The UK also has substantial world-class design and development expertise in manned aircraft construction and systems integration, the development of guided weapons and in a wide range of mission systems. However, these statements are matched by a clear statement that the future will not be like the past and that the conventional view of airpower and its supporting domestic DTIB will be replaced by a different set of priorities, equipment needs and industrial infrastructure. Fixed Wing Aircraft 19. The most telling aspects of the DIS and DTS are encompassed by two related assertions based on a view of contemporary trends in procurement, ever-increasing development costs, longer equipment life times and consequently fewer numbers that are eventually procured. This has been especially evident in fixed wing combat aircraft. Bluntly, procuring the Typhoon and the JSF has removed the requirement “for the UK to design and build a future generation of manned fast jet aircraft for the foreseeable future.” The main DTIB requirement henceforward will be to retain the technological base to upgrade and integrate new technologies. The provision of transport and other large aircraft platforms will be treated as a commodity to be acquired from international suppliers. Only specific UK operationally relevant technologies and through life management issues will require national technology investment. 20. Moreover, in too many cases the flexibility and agility of airpower has not been “matched by agility in major aerospace programmes. The time and cost of relatively modest platform upgrades has too often been hard to justify and air power risks pricing itself out of business.” On the other hand, the development of Unmanned Airborne Systems is seen as a major opportunity to address the traditional economics of development, manufacture and employment of air systems. The DTS assigns a high priority to airborne sensors, defensive FEBRUARY 2007 7
Page 1 and 2: Aerospace and the UK Defence Indust
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Page 5: The two current major military aero
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DTS Paper.qxp - Royal Aeronautical Society

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