Page 136 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2021

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NOVEMBER 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
and we went outside of the company,” Froelich said. “Vigil- are for instance, uses a Raytheon product, so we’ve started to talk to Raytheon. With Boeing we talk about Wedgetail aircraft – what do they have today, where are they headed.
“Both of those companies have systems that are deployed today, so we’ve asked, what are the areas where you would like to lean in and go forward?”
Those conversations even extend to research and de- velopment programs: “We also wanted to understand was there anything that they were bringing to the table in terms of research and development that they wanted to put on the table,” Froelich confirmed.
ways preserved,” he said. “There is a standard for commu- nications, and the interface design specs and the design of the actual system itself will meet those. You don’t have to pierce that IP bubble.”
“That’s where the open mission system is particularly im- portant,” Neale Prescott, Director of Rotary and Mission Systems Business Development for Australia, added. “Vital- ly important is that technical set of boundaries and inter- faces. That’s where we can then publish a method by which data is streamed backwards and forwards, and whether the product is from Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, CEA, or Silentium, we’ve now got the capacity to many companies
When asked how LMA identifies ‘best-
of-breed’ in a truly agnostic manner – i.e.
without favouring its own products – Fro-
elich laughs: “When you are building com-
mand and control systems, you have to
look at products as nodes. You must be
willing to be agnostic. I’ve been in pro-
grams where we had to integrate old Soviet
radars in the early 2000s, when we were
trying to give an air sovereignty capability to some of the old Soviet bloc nations,” he said.
“You make selections based on requirements. So there is a set of requirements that the RAAF has flowed down to us. Anything that we would do has to be measured against those requirements, and so that’s what we’re doing. Any final selections will be made in consultation with the Com- monwealth and the industry team, so there is a natural check and balance against any one company simply advo- cating for its products. At the end of the day Air 6500 is not about Lockheed Martin, and we never lose sight of that.”
Like Zeitz, Froelich is not concerned about the acquisi- tion model creating IP issues.
“In a command and control integration IP is almost al-
contributing to the collective picture.” And the same question again: in LMA’s view, what are the top three risks
facing the program?
“The ADF has a very diverse set of ca-
pabilities,” Prescott said. “That is going to require a lot of care and interface man- agement. Ensuring that is done methodi- cally and in a prioritised way so that the
system evolves is one of the key areas that requires focus. “Air 6500 is a vitally important program. Australia really has advanced this requirement faster than any other coun- try. Now what’s necessary to give Australia that security ad- vantage is being able to network these capabilities together.” For Froelich, the main area of focus is undertaking the cultural shift required to create and deliver a truly evolving
and open capability.
“For programs to stay relevant in the 21st century threat
environment, they need to be able to continuously evolve as threats and technologies change. There’s a cultural shift required to execute an agile continuous integration and continuous delivery model. We hope to earn the Common- wealth’s trust to take that journey together.” ■
“THERE’S A CULTURAL SHIFT REQUIRED TO EXECUTE AN AGILE CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION AND CONTINUOUS DELIVERY MODEL”
LEFT: A US Army M901 Launching Station is in position in the Shoalwater Bay Training Area.
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