Analyse Environment & Options

Selection of improvement opportunities, and the design of the program SDE, are major decisions that will effect the Defence System costs and performance over the whole life cycle. This section explains how to analyse the business and information technology options, to provide a background for rational choices.

Business Environment and Options

In order to develop a Through Life Information Management Strategy for the program in question, it is necessary to understand, and to document those aspects of the program business environment that have relevance to information management. Most of the necessary information will already be very familiar to the program staff and hopefully will already be documented, in existing strategies and plans.

The analysis of business environment starts by exploring the requirements and constraints placed on the program by external authorities, which the Program Manager is unable to change. Examples may include the requirements derived from the Validated Mission Need (e.g. required capability and availability), current policies, decisions already taken, and the requirement for international co-operation. This analysis establishes the boundaries within which improvements are possible.

After addressing the external environment, attention can be focussed on the opportunities for process improvement within the program itself. A Through Life Business Model (TLBM) provides a useful tool for describing and understanding the defence system program environment. Developed from the viewpoint of a life-time owner of the system the TLBM can be used to investigate alternative approaches:

• to structuring and managing program activities;
• to the extent of contractor support and the roles and responsibilities of contractors, during and after acquisition;
• to the relationship, and split of work between the Defence System project and the Armed Forces who will operate and may support the system;

• to the information requirements and flows that need to be managed over the life cycle.

A generic TLBM for a Defence System has been developed by NATO CALS, to illustrate the improved business processes for through life management, enabled by a Shared Data Environment.

The NATO CALS TLBM defines a new approach to management of a Defence System, showing how integrated product and support data contained in one single source could improve processes for acquiring, operating, supporting and disposing of a Defence System. It reflects many new ideas and improved ways of working, not all of which will be achievable on any single program. By tailoring this model to reflect the specific program, it is possible to explore and to illustrate how the digital environment can be exploited on the program in question.

Tailoring of the NATO TLBM should be based on:

• the actual business environment in which the program will operate,
• and specific opportunities for improvement which the program wishes to explore.

By studying each activity box in the generic TLBM, it is possible to understanding whether particular activities apply to the program in question, who is likely to perform them, and what improvements might be possible from an SDE. The use of a TLBM will also function as a ‘question generator’ identifying issues deserving attention within the CALS Strategy and for the rest of the program. The NATO CALS TLBM is a guide, not a standard. It is for each Program Manager to decide which improvements to implement, and how to apply them in his context.

This tailoring and analysis process will also be of benefit to programs buying an existing system, whether military or commercial of the shelf (COTS). The use of a TLBM will help clarify the strategy for supporting the system through life, the level of dependence on the intended supplier over the life cycle and the opportunities for exploiting IT.

The TLBM should be analysed to a sufficient detail to understand the nature of the information requirements to support the intended way of working. The following are examples of questions that the model may help to resolve.

Program Management 

• How will key resources (money, people, information) be managed?
• What are the roles, responsibilities of the many participants who will perform the various activities over the life cycle?
• How might these change over time? How will such changes be managed?
• How are requirements kept current over the life cycle?
• What kind of incentive arrangements would be most appropriate between the government and industrial prime contractor?
• What teaming concepts are to be used?
• How will program changes be managed?
• How will the program be controlled?

Quality Assurance

• How will baseline requirements be captured and managed?
• How will in-service effectiveness and feedback be managed?
• How will reliable historic records be maintained over the life cycle?

Information Management

• What information is to be managed?
• What form is it to be in?
• Who owns/manages/uses the information?
• What information should be shared, exchanged or integrated?

Configuration Management

• How will product change be controlled (and linked to changes to the support)?
• How will changes to the product be related to requirements?
• How will (required/actual) product configurations be identified?
• How will current configuration data be provided to those who need it?
• How will configuration anomalies be reported and resolved?

Concurrent Engineering

• What engineering methodology will be used (e.g. waterfall, spiral)?
• How will technical information be defined and kept current with product information?
• How will Integrated Logistics Support be implemented?

Multi-Disciplinary Groups

• How are skills and resources from different organisations brought together to solve problems efficiently by joint inter-active working (physically/face to face meetings/ virtual environment through SDE) / who will be the members?

At an early stage of the program life cycle, it will often be impossible to forecast the longer-term future with any confidence. It is however important, from the program outset, to consider the whole life cycle. Failure to do so will close off, or greatly increase the cost, of significant future options for sustaining the Defence System efficiently, over the rest of its life. Nowhere is this more important than with Defence System product information. In this area, there are huge opportunities for reducing life cycle costs, by taking sensible and low cost precautions from the program outset. This will ensure that later in the life cycle, the Defence System material manager has flexibility he needs to run his business efficiently in the face of a changing environment (e.g. the opportunity to re-compete for particular goods and services). A final output from the business environment analysis should be the identification of options for future improvements or changes in responsibility, which the program needs to protect.

A summary of the information which needs to be recorded (or referenced) from the Business Environment analysis is presented in Annex E, which lists the expected contents of the Through Life Information Managment Strategy.

  IT Environment and Options

The second activity within the NATO CALS Handbook Phase 1 is an assessment of the external CALS environment, relevant to the particular program. This should include consideration of:

• relevant legacy systems – industry, government, Armed Forces
• relevant IT trends
• Government IT policies and plans
• recent experience of other programs
• available software tools, now and in the future.

An area for particular attention is the existing and planned Information Technology (IT) capabilities for the program for both the governmental and industrial partners. Even though these change over time and are therefore a moving target, when developing a Through Life Information Managment Strategy for a specific program, the following key areas should be assessed:

• availability of terminals, now and in future
• level of experience with digital working
• telecommunications capabilities
• interoperability requirements
• current and proposed future standards
• security
• legal/contractual aspects
• Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

This initial analysis, coupled with the business viewpoint, can be used to develop a steadily improving picture of the intended extent of digital working to be applied to the program in question. This in turn begins to define a set of options for the scale, extent and capability of the Shared Data Environment that the program will seek to deploy. Questions to be addressed include:

• What information is required, by whom and when over the life cycle?
• What will they do with it?
• How much of the data will be generated, accessed and manipulated in digital form?
• To what degree will business still be conducted on paper?
• To what extent does an SDE already exist for the program?
• What are the options for improving or extending this?
• Who will have controlled access to the new SDE?
• Who owns and operate the SDE, during the acquisition phase and subsequently?
• How will the SDE be financed?
• How will the SDE be managed?

Specific attention should be given to the boundaries of the SDE. The complete and free access to program data,as assumed by the TLBM, is some years away from reality. However all of the individual capabilities that together could make up a SDE as described in this handbook, are already in practical use at an industrial scale and could be realised for a Defence System, given sufficient investment. In practice no single program SDE will encompass all of the program participants. Limitations will have to be set on the extent of shared access. Every boundary drawn for the SDE will create a border across which information will need to be exchanged. In this way, it is the boundaries chosen for the program Shared Data Environment that determine the information exchange requirements with the rest of the world.

In exploring CALS environment, and the possible SDE options, particular attention should be paid to the recent experience of other relevant programs. The NATO CALS Office provides a natural focal point for such learning, through its attendance at international conferences, and contacts in the participating nations. The Internet is also rapidly increasing in value, as an information source for CALS, not least through the various home pages, maintained by the national CALS offices. Several relevant periodicals and other publications are also starting to appear, some free of charge, through sponsorship by government or commerce.

Although these documentary sources are of significant value, programs developing a CALS Strategy should invest the necessary time and travel funds to visit other program offices, and/or industrial sites, that have recent relevant experience.

The contractual aspects of alternatives developed through analysis and tailoring of the TLBM and the CALS Environment for the program should be considered at the earliest possible time given the complexities of international contracting and through life support of NATO/Multi-national armament programs.