Page 20 - Williams Foundation Integrated Force Design Seminar

Designing the Integrated Force: How to Define and Meet the Challenge?

Many of the statements made in this report are not referenced as they are derived from these Chatham House
discussions and associated meetings.

IAMD is a highly complex issue; comments made in this report should not be construed in any way as being critical
of the IAMD approach of the Department of Defence. This report cannot account for the full complexity of the
integrated force design process that is being addressed within Defence; however, it may offer some value in
providing suggestions based on the study findings.

This study would not have been possible without the support and assistance of several areas within the Australian
Department of Defence, the US Defense Department, Industry and think tanks. The Williams Foundation deeply
appreciates the support of the IAMD Study major sponsors, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Thanks are
also due to Jacobs in funding the services of Dr. Gary Waters who provided valuable support in the research for
the study and in the production of the workshop notes.

This report represents the views of AVM Blackburn (Retd), the IAMD Study lead. This study report is intentionally
high level and brief; in the author’s experience, long and detailed reports are rarely read by senior decision
makers.

The report can be downloaded here:

http://www.williamsfoundation.org.au/resources/Pictures/WF_IAMD_ReportFinal.pdf

RESHAPING THE INDUSTRIAL-GOVERNMENT WORKING RELATIONSHIP TO
ENABLE INTEGRATED FORCE DESIGN

The Williams Foundation seminars on the crafting and empowering of an integrated force has focused largely
on key elements for reshaping the force and enabling the capability to shape a more effective and
integrated combat force. This will simply not occur without a significant reworking of the partnership with
industry and the capability to bringing outside players in shaping innovation inside the process of defining,
designing and building the force over time.
The process requires a much greater degree of openness to the inclusion of industry in shaping capabilities. In
an article about Plan Jericho and the new approach towards industry, a way ahead was highlighted.

With the backing of RAAF leadership, the team decided to apply this new approach to the challenge of
retrofitting the Hawk 127 Lead-in-fighter jet with the technology needed for it to operate under a new airspace
management system in Australia. OneSKY requires all civilian and military aircraft to be fitted with an automatic
dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) system that digitally shares their precise location.

It will be significant investment in time and money to have ADS-B on all military aircraft.

But the Hawk 127 posed a problem. “There’s very little real estate in which to put anything and the plane’s
original manufacturer told us the solution was going to be very costly and take considerable time to develop,”
Wing Commander Reid says.

“So we partnered with BAE Australia and invited all the aerospace sector players – some 20-odd players,
including the primes such as Airbus, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon as well as small Australian players such as
Enigma Aviation – into the Design Innovation Research Center. There were over 40 people there from around the
world, and we locked them in a room and said, ‘Let’s understand the complexities and then solve this problem.”

Second Line of Defense

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