BAE Systems /Harrier UORs for Afghanistan
I. Program Overview
OrgName/Program Name: / BAE Systems /Harrier UORs for AfghanistanYour Name/Position/Contact information – E-mail, Phone / Angus Currie, Head of Aircraft Capability (Harrier),
01252382774
07736810447
Customer: / Sharky Ward, Har SM Capability
Harrier Project Team, DE&S ,RAF Wyton
Program Category / System level Production/Sustainment program or project
Program Background: What is this program all about? (No more than one page). Describe:
The overarching need for this program
History of the program
The product that is created by this program
Scope of work – original & updated
Expected deliverables
Current status of the program / This nomination recognises the team for developing and demonstrating that the Joint Force Harrier could be quickly modified to give a Helmet Mounted Cueing System (HMCS) and a Defensive aids system (DAS) and delivering significant military capability, that has saved lives in Afghanistan.Through BAE Systems Harrier Team’s close working relationship with the RAF and our knowledge of the Harrier integration, we identified that a potential capability gap existed for off centre (boresight) targeting and defence against increased surface to air threats in Afghanistan.Although it was clear that providing the Harrier with an helmet mounted cueing system would be very appropriate for current operations in Afghanistan, the customer perceived that this would be too complex and expensive.The Team took the initiative and a business case was developed leading to a ‘Company funded’ Rapid Technology Insertion (RTI) programme.
By using tracking technology being developed for the Typhoon programme and coupling it with an existing Jaguar Helmet Cueing system, the team was able put together a rig demonstration. We invited pilots from RAF and Royal Navy, along with representatives of the UK MoD. All were so impressed that the Customer Priority for a HMCS went from 70 to 2.As a result in the confidence of the solution the MoD raised an Urgent operational requirement (UOR). In parallel to this the Harrier team had been working on solutions to improve the survivability of the Harrier, against emerging Surface to air missile threats. Again through a company funded RTI and partnering with the RAF the team had identified that a Defensive Aids Pod, being developed for the Nimrod programme, could be quickly modified for use on Harrier. The company developing this pod was TERMA, and working at risk they helped us develop a fully costed integration. It became clear that combining the integration and embodiment of these two UORs would enable us to offer an excellent, value for money solution, which could be deployed in very responsive timescales. Through dialogue with the MoD a second UOR was raised and a ~£20m contract was awarded for a combined solution. With the team well ahead in the integration due to the £2m pre-contract activities, we were able to give our first Design Authority clearance in just 4 months. The integration of the TERMA DAS and the HMCS represents an impressive capability jump for the Harrier, integrated and embodied in impossible time scales. Now deployed in Afghanistan, both the RAF/Royal Navy and the MoD customers, are excited by this impressive capability. The HMCS has significantly increased the pilot’s situational awareness and reduced the time required to verify and engage with enemy forces. The DAS allows the Harrier to support the coalition troops in areas previously considered too high risk. Both have directly contributed to saving the lives of both coalition ground forces and civilians in theatre.
A Squadron Leader with theRAF's Operational Evaluation Unit, who had flown GR9’s in Afghanistan said,
“I genuinely believe that right now I would pick the Harrier GR9 over other world class platforms and that is due to your efforts and the way you have engaged with the RAF, with HMCS and TERMA, I would pick the GR9 every time! It is hard to convey the impact your work is having on the troops on the ground (not just British). I can of course show you plenty of evidence of the impact your work is having on the Anti-coalition Militia and the Taliban. What I have found most gratifying in working on the GR9 upgrade and the associated projects is that you all seem to share the Service’s desire to do the very best for the platform and that is reflected by the effort so evidently going into the project.”
- Value Creation = 20 points
Value:
What is the value, competitive positioning, advantage, and return created by this program to your:
- Customers – National interests, war fighter
- Company – Strength, bottom line, and shareholders
- Scientific/technical value (particularly for R&D programs)
“I genuinely believe that right now I would pick the Harrier GR9 over other world class platforms and that is due to your efforts and the way you have engaged with the RAF, with HMCS and TERMA, I would pick the GR9 every time! It is hard to convey the impact your work is having on the troops on the ground (not just British). I can of course show you plenty of evidence of the impact your work is having on the Anti-coalition Militia and the Taliban. What I have found most gratifying in working on the GR9 upgrade and the associated projects is that you all seem to share the Service’s desire to do the very best for the platform and that is reflected by the effort so evidently going into the project.”
Company: The successful operation of the GR9A in Afghanistan has significantly increased BAE Systems and our industrial partners’ credibility. It has demonstrated our responsiveness and our ability to support through life capability. This was a significant value of business for BAE Systems, it allowed the Harrier Team to meet its order intake, cash, and profit targets. It was a ~£20m programme which delivered the agreed levels of cash and margin. Additionally, as these UOR capabilities may be required to be developed as ‘core capabilities’ there is the opportunity for follow on development work.The processes, flexibility, and controls developed in delivering this have positioned BAE SYSTEMS to make affordably bids for follow on UOR work. These capabilities have already been transferred to the Tornado programme with large value contracts already in place. BAE Systems are formally assessed annually across the company by the MoD as part of the MoD Performance Review. There are a range of metrics, all giving a 1 to 10 score. Any score above 8.0 is considered as excellent and benchmark.
Though our responsiveness and the excellent relationship that has been developed by the Harrier Capability team we achieved a score of 8.1. As further evidence of how well this Endeavour was regarded within the company, three of the lead members of the team received an Engineer of the year award, it is unheard of to have more than one on any project. The combined UORs also received 2 major Chairman’s Awards for Innovations, one for Enhancing Customer Performance and one for the Transfer of Best Practice.As mentioned in the customer section the combined MoD and BAE Systems’ team have received a Director Combat Air Commendation specifically for the deployment of the HMCS and DAS in Theatre. Presented by Air Vice Marshal Bollom, it recognises how the partnered approach delivered incredible capability in impossible timescales.
Scientific/technical value: By taking the evolving optical Typhoon Helmet tracking technology and accelerating its clearance to be used on a fast jet in theatre, we have achieved a technological first.We also achieved a world first by clearing a fast jet to use cutting edge flare patterns ahead of any other jet. The confidence in these new technologies has paved the way for the adaptation and deployment of the DAS on the now deployed Tornado aircraft.
Excellence and Uniqueness:
What makes this program unique? Why should this program be awarded the Program Excellence Award? In what ways is this a stellar program? / The development of both the capability and the partnering relationship is I believe quite unique and required both parties to work outside their normal environment, and cultures. Harrier was the only deployed fast Jet with a Helmet mounted cueing system and forward firing flares.Partnering was a key enabler to delivering the capability deployed in Afghanistan. The already strong partnering culture on the GR9 programme, formalized through a joint partnering charter between the Harrier MoD Team and BAE Systems allowed us to take the leading part in a fully engaged development team, with many partners (MoD, RAF, Royal Navy, TERMA, and BAE SYSTEMS.), focused on delivering the needs of the front-line. Trust and personal relationships, developed over a long period of time, allowed the flexible approach to contractual change required to deliver.
III. Organizational Processes/Best Practices: (How do you do things) = 30 points
Strategic:Describe how you developed your program strategy and competitive advantage in support of your company strategy, how you monitor progress toward achieving this strategy / The BAE Systems Military Air Solutions’ mission statement is ‘Working as an integral part of the team delivering effective air power, our aim is to give real advantage to the men and women of the Armed Forces. Trusted to deliver always’.
In order to meet this, a set of Strategic objectives have been defined and agreed. One of these is:‘To strengthen our Customer’s confidence by focussing on the front line and by anticipating their needs.’This project has been recognised across both the Customer and company as the premier example of this strategic objective in action. By focusing on the frontline requirements the team developed and demonstrated the capability to fulfil a requirement the front line pilots did not realise could be solved. The end result has out stripped anyone’s expectations, and has definitely saved lives. Harrier’s strategy is to reduce the line off sight to the front line for every one of our engineers. This is achieved through the end to end involvement of front line operational pilots and ground crew, from requirements through software and systems testing to final release to service. We also included regular all employee briefs from Pilots just back from Afghanistan, to emphasise the benefit the work they were doing was having. To demonstrate the impact of this strategy a quick reminder of the letter received from the Harrier Pilot ‘….I can of course show you plenty of evidence of the impact your work is having on the Anti-coalition Militia and the Taliban. What I have found most gratifying in working on the GR9 upgrade and the associated projects is that you all seem to share the Service’s desire to do the very best for the platform and that is reflected by the effort so evidently going into the project’
Strategic:
Requirements Management – How do you define, revise and control your requirements? / Originally we had no requirements just an understanding of how Harrier was operating in Afghanistan. Once it was clear that the customer would be interested in the concept we worked together to produce a statement of operating intent. This formed the basis for the UOR. These requirements were fed into our already established requirements management system. This is a hierarchal system which configures the requirements up and down the systems lifecycle. We also ensured we had end customer involvement in all stages of the lifecycle. This included front line pilots and one MoD person permanently based at BAE Systems Farnborough. This allowed us to make the constant trade offs that were required to make this a success. We were able to measure the maturity of each requirement as it passed through the systems process from coding through testing and finally formal customer acceptance.
Strategic:
Systems Engineering – Describe your systems engineering planning and management processes. / A detailed programme was compiled using Microsoft Project which was then,most importantly,added into the overallproject MSP programme so thatresource scheduling and dependencies between the UOR activitiesand the existing already contracted work (which we still had to deliver) could be managed to achieve optimum progress on all tasks.Management was performedthroughpeer review atexisting monthly programme reviewsusing tools such asmonitoring of earned value management against the programme, milestone status reporting and riskand associated mitigation review, etc. These monthly reviews are a normal occurrence on the project and the UOR activity was added to the agenda so that the UOR work could be managed using familiar processes and be managed in the context of the overall business.
Strategic:
Opportunity Management -
Describe how your program identifies opportunity and manages this opportunity. / The Harrier project has a long established joint risk and opportunity management process. Risks and opportunities along with mitigation plans are identified at the start of the programme. The financial and programme exposure is then modeled in ‘Predict’, our chosen risk management tool. These are shared with the customer and we have a joint management process. During the project risk and opportunities can be raised at any time and are configured into the Predict tool. Because of the tempo of this particular programme at times we were holding daily management reviews.
Operational:Planning, Monitoring, and Controlling -
Describe your planning and resource allocation processes. How do you monitor and review your program progress and make corrections to keep the program on track / Once we had understood the requirements we produced an integrated project programme. Using our standard process a Microsoft Project Plan was produced. A 2000 interlinked activity programme was created. Each activity was fully loaded with its resource requirements and dependencies. This was then baselined and updated on a weekly basis. On a monthly the resource demand was loaded to the Company resource management tool which matches supply and demand
Operational:
Supply Chain Management --What processes, tools and relationship-building methods have you used to develop, refine and improve supply chain and stakeholder integration? This is one of the most imperative needs of our industry – please provide specific details and data that assisted you in gauging the effectiveness. / The BAE Systems MAS business has a proven Supplier Management and Development Framework that is underpinned by a company wide Lifecycle Management Framework (LCM). The Supplier Management Framework was deployed but with open and honest challenges from all sides to attain a common goal, the delivery of the UOR’s and delivery them within a timescales not normally associated with a traditional Design, Develop and Build process. Examples of this challenge include greatly reducing the Data Requirements List (DRL’s), and the working in parallel of many of the commercial issues between the respective businesses whilst jointly developing the respective solutions. In addition the Customer was fully engaged in the working relationship that we had with our partners in the Supply Chain.In terms of stakeholder management all key BAE and Partner company (BAE Systems Inc. and TERMA) Senior Management teams were fully bought into the process and timescales to empower the respective working teams to delivery the challenging UOR’s. The effectiveness of this process and the success of the UOR’s can be measured by the level of Customer Satisfaction that was achieved against this activity.