Spring 2011 Issue 12


11


As each six-month tour ends, the Army, Ministry of Defence (MoD) and General Dynamics UK work together to identify soldiers with valuable tales to tell. They are then invited to give a presentation at General Dynamics UK’s premises which is followed by a general question and answer session.


“The character of each briefing is different,” says Beswick. “The experiences of no two units are identical – they go to different areas, the campaign is in a different stage of maturity, the threat evolves and so on. Each has their own individual perspective.”


While the visitors might comprise two to four people, the number of General Dynamics UK employees in the audience has been anything up to 100, reflecting the usefulness of the sessions and the desire to support troops on operations as much as possible.


Given the nature of the Company’s work, the focus of the events is on command and control and providing information to support commanders’ decision-making. And so the visitors are generally commanders and signallers, but from a wide variety of units and representing command levels from platoon right up to battlegroup.


Opportunity to respond While the purpose is to inform and enlighten, General Dynamics UK is also alert to any opportunities that might arise to respond directly to the soldiers’ needs. For example, a recent presentation by troops from 1 Grenadier Guards highlighted a need for the ability to print maps, using commercial office printers, that would still be legible after being rained on.


Employees from the EDGE® UK surveyed the market and found ToughPrint® waterproof paper. They carried out a number of tests: after printing maps they submerged the paper in cold water, splashed the maps with boiling water, coffee and soft drinks and sprayed them with a range of chemicals. After wiping clean, the maps were still perfectly readable. The paper is also difficult


Trusted to deliver


to rip but easy to write on with pens, pencils and marker pens. Further trials are planned with a Bowman A3/ A4 COTS printer.


What happens next is, naturally, up to the military. Even such an apparently simple solution might turn out to have wider consequences. For example, General Dynamics UK can carry out a full range of tests, but guaranteeing that this solution will work with all the printers currently fielded by the Army is a different matter.


What this example highlights, however, is a willingness to understand what end users are going through and how their lives can be made easier. It’s an openness and responsiveness that would be difficult to achieve without the kind of direct dialogue provided by these operational briefings. Other more significant examples of ideas from users that have now been delivered as fielded capabilities include the Bowman Chat service and the commander’s sketch pad.


Key mechanism Indeed, the EDGE® UK is built around that kind of dialogue. The facility is a key mechanism for engagement with the user community. It gives General Dynamics UK the ability to de-risk projects, and this applies not only to involvement with the customer but also to working alongside


partners and suppliers – including smaller companies that might have no other way of engaging directly with end users.


“If we see something that looks potentially beneficial, we can invest some time and resources, along with the third-party supplier, on an EDGE® UK project, if we think it has potential mutual benefit,” says Beswick. “Projects started this way may feed into formal MoD development or procurement processes or Urgent Operational Requirements [UORs].”


Along with General Dynamics UK’s annual Joint Internal Research and Development (JIRAD) event, the continual activities at the EDGE® UK and more informal channels of communication, the operational briefings demonstrate that General Dynamics UK is listening and responding to the real-world requirements of the armed forces.


Listening is an essential part of learning what soldiers need


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