Introduction
Huge thanks to everyone who attended January’s Support Chain Seminar and to the speakers and sponsors that made the event a resounding success. This was the first in-person event that we’ve been able to host in over 18 months and it provided an invaluable opportunity for people across the defence community to meet, network, and hear the excellent range of presentations. For those unable to join us in person, including many speakers, there was online access as well. We hope we will be able to continue this trend and increase face-to-face participation in future events.
TD-Info Staff Changes
This month we welcome Julian Dayment, Andie Johnson-Mitchell, and Andy Corbett. In March’s newsletter we’ll bring you full introductions to our new colleagues.
New Member
We are pleased to announce that Cloudera (UK) Ltd have joined TD-Info. Cloudera provides secure hybrid cloud services for private and public sector clients.
Future Events
“Ask Me Anything” Webinars – Cyber: Secure by Design & Resilience – 9 February 2022 – We continue the series of monthly Ask Me Anything webinars that have been successful and well-received by Team Defence Information members. Register for the forthcoming free webinar on 9 February 2022 using the link Cyber: Secure by Design & Resilience. If you would like further information on these events, please contact Luca Leone.
Next Trading Forum meeting – 11.00 Tuesday 8 March 2022 – The meeting will be on MS Teams for TD-Info Members. Contact Andy Whatman for more information.
Next ASD-STE-100 Simplified Technical English® (STE) Course – 21-24 March 2022 (09.00-12.30) on MS Teams – Ciaran Dodd, our ASD-approved trainer, will deliver the course. There are dates for courses later in the year on the calendar. To find out more, email TD-Info here.
Supply Chain Sub Working Group (SWG) – (09.00-16.30) 23 February 2022 at the Digital Manufacture Centre – On the agenda are command updates on Additive Manufacture (AdM) and workshops to support the CDLS AdM Challenge work streams and share best practice in AdM within some of our member organisations (fully booked). As the CDLS work streams develop, the area of interest in this SWG will diversify to investigate the potential of industry 4.0 and other technologies such as augmented and virtual reality to create support advantage. For more information contact Steve Green.
Sustainable Defence Support (Def Sp) Sub Working Group (SWG) – 09:30 to 16:30 18 March 2022 (postponed from 16 Feb) at Unipart HQ, Cowley – Register here to book one of the last few remaining spaces. Jen Hunt, Head of Sustainability, Unipart Group is the keynote speaker. The Def Sp SWG will provide an update and lead workshops on the Sustainability Support Strategy. There will also be presentations on the circular economy, food recycling and operational energy. We will also kick- start a task to investigate though-life sustainability tools. After the event, there’s an opportunity to visit the Advanced Supply Chain Institute. Contact Steve Green to find out more.
Digital Decision Making – 09.00-17.00 17 May 2022 (postponed from 20 Jan) at the University of Lincoln – Register here to book your place. For this event, we’re partnering with Defence Support (Def Sp) and the University of Lincoln (UoL). This event will be sharing latest thinking from academia, industry and defence introducing diversity of thought and challenge to identifying potential practice, process and technology to improve Digital Decision Making that will reduce Supply Chain Risk and Increase Resilience. For more information contact Steve Green.
Distribution Sub Working Group (SWG)
We’re planning the next Distribution SWG, which Westfields will host. This event will consider the potential of hybrid vehicles and autonomy across the defence enterprise as well as updates on our Cobot experimentation with 5 Bn REME. For more information contact Steve Green.
Sustainable Through Life Sustainability Toolset – Currently in Defence there is no definitive policy on how to make through life sustainability trade-offs to guide supportability and design engineers. When engineers make design and material decisions early in a product’s lifecycle, these decisions can have significant environmental impact, bake-in carbon and prohibit options for more circular and sustainable in-service support. This task will make recommendations on how to implement an agreed approach, methodology and toolset across the extended defence enterprise. The task team needs supportability analysts, integrated logistic support managers and sustainability specialists and expertise from the build environment & other sectors to collaborate on this joint MOD and Industry paper. Access the draft task form here and contact Steve Green to get involved.
TD-Info developing support for MOD DE&S Future Capability Group (FCG) – TD-Info continues to actively support and assist the FCG in kick-starting key initiatives identified jointly by DE&S and MOD Front Line Commands (FLCs). This collaboration is called the Open Innovation Laboratory (OIL).
Here is what you need to know about OIL:
Joint Strategy: Coherent, thought collaboration focal point for industry engagement, consistent messaging, and communication across industry sectors.
About: Command focused and sponsored problems/opportunities that are outcome based to enable exploitation and acquisition of products, upgrades, and services.
How? By the exploitation and utilization of the most appropriate existing Working Group or community Collaborating with: MOD problem owners and funders, defence primes and OEMs, established tier suppliers, solution architects and systems integrators, other sector supply chains, SMEs.
Current activities at the early planning stage include:
• Hackathon using Boston Dynamics ‘Spot’ www.bostondynamics.com to identify API and integration strategies (see next item)
• Production of a paper to inform Robotic and Autonomous System API and Integration Strategy
• Hydrogen Network Event
These activities build upon the new engagement approach outlined in the FCG Industry Engagement Strategy released in July 2021. If you would like more information on OIL please contact either Steve Green or Darin Tudor.
Coming soon…the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Hackathon – FCG supported by TD-Info will run a hackathon. It is part of FCG’s work to investigate swarming robots, Dev Ops and the utility of open architectures. Working out of the DE&S Innovation Hub with access to a Dev Ops environment, we’re looking for programmers with creative ideas and coding skills to challenge the Spot robots to see what can be achieved in a 48-hour period. Contact Steve Green to get involved. More details coming soon!
The Defence Asset Management Community of Practice (DAM CoP) ‘Implementation of AM across Defence’ – The Defence Asset Management Community of Practice (DAM CoP) is kicking off its first collaborative project, titled ‘Implementation of AM across Defence’. The anticipated areas of consideration are:
• Which parts of defence enterprise should be doing which parts of AM
• What is common across defence
• What is unique to some parts of defence
• How can TD-Info support the industry to move forward
Contact steve.green@teamdefence.info or pierre-michael.delamotte@atkinsglobal.com if you are interested in supporting this project.
SupportNET 2022 – 28 to 29 April 2022 – TD-Info is pleased to support this year’s SupportNET22 event which provides an opportunity for senior leaders from Defence Support, Defence Equipment and Support, Front Line Commands, industry, academia, international partners, and external speakers to articulate and discuss how availability can be improved. Lt Gen Richard Wardlaw OBE, CDLS, will be the leading keynote speaker for this year’s event which is themed “Delivering Better Availability”.
SupportNET22 (restrictions allowing) will be a physical two-day event in the SOFITEL (T5) London Heathrow hotel and it free to attend. Online registration will be open shortly on the TD-Info website . For more information, or to exhibit, contact Kevin Atkins.
Defence Information 2022 (DI22) – 8-9 June 2022 – Put these dates in your diary for the next DI22 conference, jointly hosted by TD-Info and MOD Defence Digital. This will be a two-day hybrid event held at the Active Conference Centre, Thornbury, Bristol, and remotely on-line. At the end of Day One there will be a stand-up buffet and networking event. Senior keynote speakers from the MOD will present strategic topics and join panel discussions with representatives from across industry and academia.
1. We are looking for speakers from industry to join our programme. If you would like to participate, please email Steve Shepherd with a brief outline of your presentation or workshop by midday Friday 11 February 2022, including a statement of how your proposal supports the theme of DI22.
2. We are also inviting contributions for the prestigious Excellence Award. To apply please submit your ideas to Tony Butler.
3. If you would like to be a sponsor for DI22 or exhibit please contact Sue Russell.
Recent Events
Support Chain Seminar (SCS) – 12 to 13 January 2022 – “Delivering Support Through Partnering in the Digital Age” – The recent SCS, co-hosted by TD-Info and DE&S, focussed on how Defence is exploiting new digital technologies to deliver word-class support and collaboratively achieve the Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) 2025 Strategy goals. SCS was extremely successful with presentations from senior keynote speakers from DE&S, MOD, industry, and academia. In his closing remarks Roger West, Dir Logistics and Support Operating Centre (LSOC), DE&S, recognised “the big investment for a lot of people to organize and attend the event” and thanked everyone for their positive contributions.
Thank you to our event sponsors Appian, Babcock, Leidos, TLMNexus, TVS, Pega, IFS, Palantir, BMT, Allan Webb, Rina, Oracle, Whitetree, MOD, Arke and for the valued support from Fujitsu and Kahootz.
The presentation slides and recordings are now available to delegates on the Kahootz Event Platform and will remain there for a further 30 days. Can you please also complete the SCS event survey? Your feedback is important to us and we use it to improve future events. For more information on SCS, contact Leyton Lark.
Recent Publications
MOD Article on Multi-Domain Integration – On 17 January 2022, the MOD published an article on Multi-Domain Integration (MDI) describing:
- What is MDI?
- Why do we need MDI?
- How are we achieving MDI?
The article is available here. Also, Lieutenant General Rob Magowan, Senior Responsible Owner for MDI, explains why integration is essential on YouTube here.
DE&S Executive Committee share their goals for 2022 – Click here for Desider magazine which published the article.
TD-Info Calendar of Events for 2022 – We regularly add events to our website calendar here. Please check the calendar for the latest details on all events because events sometimes change.
Non-TD Info Events
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) Webinar – Future of Resilient Communications, Networks and Architectures for Defence – 13.00-14.30 15 February 2022 – This webinar will outline Dstl’s investment of £100m over the next 5 years in the best and most promising new science and technologies. Dstl want to develop a diverse community of suppliers, including universities, academics, non-traditional defence suppliers, and established defence suppliers, to stimulate innovation and to accelerate potential solutions through to concept demonstration. Register for the webinar through Eventbrite.
Do you know how to produce a Carbon Reduction Plan? If not, this free training is for you…. – On 5 June 2021, the Government published Procurement Policy Note 06/21 that requires suppliers bidding for major government contracts to commit to achieving Net Zero by 2050 and publish a ‘Carbon Reduction Plan’. Suppliers who fail to make this commitment or publish their plan risk being excluded from the procurement process.The Crown Commercial Service is providing a free on-line training sessions for suppliers to show suppliers how to create a Carbon Reduction Plan and to meet these commitments. There are multiple dates available between January and April 2022. Register for your free online training through Eventbrite.