UK industry must focus on end-user needs, defence leaders argue

Through-life capability management will make the UK defence industry more agile and responsive to new developments in the field, senior figures from industry and the armed forces told London's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on 3 October.

Commodore Jeremy Stanford, Assistant Chief of Staff (Carrier Strike and Aviation), Fleet HQ, told the conference entitled 'Defence Project Management 2007: Meeting the Challenges of Today, Preparing for those of Tomorrow' that in the past, the end-user's voice was the least important in the cost/capability trade-off.

Cdre Stanford cited the example of a ship, which he did not name, that was "knowingly assembled with pieces of equipment which were known not to be able to do the job".

However, he added that the Defence Acquisition Change Programme (DACP) was going a long way to improving this relationship, enabling a "unity of purpose" between the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) and industry players. The end-user role is now "diverse and complex" and informs capability "around all the lines of development", Cdre Stanford said.

Walter Havenstein, Chief Operating Officer of BAE Systems Plc, and President and Chief Executive Officer of BAE Systems Inc, said there was an urgent demand for industry to be "agile", which he said it had so far been "silent" on. He said, "the bottom line is there has not been deep and significant change" yet, with industry largely to blame.

"Industry creates a momentum to keep the [national defence] budget from changing," he argued. "If you are building aeroplanes you want to keep building aeroplanes the next year and the next year. It is fascinating to me that we have not solved the IED [Improvised Explosive Device] problem and that we are still working on systems our warfighters do not need."

Source: Jane's

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