SYNERGISING ARMY, ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY
The call for converging our core competencies is not so much an organisational experience; it is basically a compelling moral duty for us-DDGADB
The Indian Army’s template for how capability development needs to take place over time is quite simple: It needs the latest world-beating technologies. It needs them as of yesterday and is willing to pay the minimum price for them.
As one of the fulfilling initiatives to ensure that the user somewhat gets integrated with the ecosystem, the Army Design Bureau was raised in 2016. However, there is a misconception in its name as right now, the ADB does not design technologies, although hopefully, it will be at some point of time in the future be part of the facilitation process for designing the Indian Army's future technologies, like is being done by its counterpart in the Navy.
The Army Design Bureau is part of the Deputy Chief (Capability, Development and Sustenance) vertical of the Indian Army. It is divided into two groups. The Technology and Weapons Systems group is the one that has subject matter experts who are competent and understand the user's capability needs with regard to various domains. Apart from the fighting arms represented in it, there is also an element of logistics services where technology can play an interface. The Technology and Weapon Systems group also releases the Technology Perspective Capability Roadmap to the industry so that there's a general understanding of which direction the Army is taking. They're also responsible for carrying out the global scan of the technologies, which could qualify for joint ventures. The group also does a global scan of likely buyers of our domestic technologies and prospective collaborators in future endeavours. In addition, it also has the charter of monitoring closely various ongoing MCC projects.
The second part is the Technology Resource Centre. In colloquial terms, it could be called the front desk of the Army Design Bureau, which means that it interfaces with all external stakeholders, such as the industry, the DRDO, the Defence PSUs, etc.
Officers of the rank of Colonels look after facets like industry, academia, field formation, etc. They take input from the field army regarding their problem areas and concerns and where technology can be interfaced to address their operational and tactical issues. In addition, it is also responsible for intimately monitoring all the routes of induction like IDEX, the Army Technology Board, the R&D routes that are available to the command to carry out their projects andvarious other initiatives like the no–cost–low–commitment demonstration that is carried out for technology that is offered by the industry. In addition, this is also the group that takes on the responsibility of giving suggestions for pragmaticre-evaluation of all these routes.
Acting as a Bridge
Over time, the ADB has established a database of almost 1800 industrial entities dealing with defence technologies. A website for the Army Design Bureau has been created for outreach so that more people know about its existence. The ADB also promulgates the compendium of problem definition statements to invite responses that could become projects and tangible routes for inducting new capabilities in the near future.
Through this intimate interaction with the industry and other stakeholders, the ADB is fully aware of the pain points, both for the user and the other side of that equation, which is the person who will deliver that product to the Army. Naturally, the industry is looking at expeditious handling of its responses to their proposals. The industry's primary concern is funding and creating an ecosystem where business cases and interests can be taken care of. Academia, on the other hand, is looking at IPRs, the publication of papers, and technologies that could be taken up for R&D, and it is expecting due recognition for the efforts they are putting in.
One important stakeholder is the DRDO. DRDO continues to seek solutions for the Indian Army, which could have long-term implications for capability development. So, how should conflict between the DRDO and the private industry be dealt with?
The ADB also interacts with service headquarters to suggest the best possible solutions for organisational restructuring, such as changing the mandate and charter. Says Brig Ravi Yadav, DDG, ADB, “We recommend evolutionary and incremental steps that could be undertaken so that in times to come, the next generation can be better integrated, and we can come up with solutions that are more applicable to the generations that follow.”
Interface with Startups
Thanks to the ADB, the industry can access users more easily. The audience is available locally so that the startup can understand how the user envisages future battles and, thereafter, take a cue from there and give a solution to those requirements. Hand-holding specific to the industry is being done whenever needed. Field firing ranges are being made available for internal testing and evolution. Trips are organised to the forward area where internal evolution can be done and modifications made to suit theproducts on offer.
In addition, numerous pieces of equipment are given to the industry for testing and for carrying out the evolution of how their technologies would be retrofitted on that equipment. However, there are many challenges and concerns regarding national security that need to be considered.
Says Brig Ravi Yadav, “The Academia has to collaborate with the manufacturing partners so that the product can be converted from a prototype into a scalable commodity that can be inducted. And finally, the Servoce we need to change ourselves. We need to change our outlook or procedures. However, we need to change our organisational setup to align ourselves with this requirement. We need to change the qualifications of the officers that we are taking in and maybe start doing a key review to ensure the future of technology induction. The call for converging our core competencies is not so much an organisational experience; it is basically a compelling moral duty for us.”
|
Expert Comments Professor Murthy HSN, Professor and Head of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Madras The pace of technological change is asymmetric. It's so fast that we don't even have time to understand how fast technology is changing. What we perhaps need is technological revolution, not technological change. But for rigid organisations like the armed forces, it is very difficult to change within your own organization. To meet the demands of a modern battlefield, militaries must take technology and apply it to the existing doctrines of war. They must evaluate the risks, threats and opportunities that they face and demand those technologies which you can achieve the military objectives. What is our immediate requirement, we need to procure immediately. But then, we should not lose track of long-term plans, long-term goals wherein we should invest money in developing new technology. There are many pillars of technology development. First is academia which brings in scientific knowledge. Then there are national labs which use existing scientific knowledge developed by academia and probably partly by national labs, to develop into technology. This technology is then picked up by industry, which does some engineering to increase efficiency. And then there are marketing experts and suppliers. At the bottom of the pyramid are the end users who have experiential knowledge. We expect academia to go all the way from generating knowledge to delivering a product. Similarly, we expect national labs to go down the same path. Similarly, in industry, we want them to do R&D all the way to the product. This is not a very good as it is not leveraging, each other's strengths. Another way is to look at assembly line model, where, academia does from trial 1 to 3, and then they hand it over to national labs, who will go from, you know, 4 to 6, and then they'll hand it over to industry, who will take it further. While such a model too will have its own inefficiencies, the consortium mode is perhaps that will work the best; armed forces should play a leadership role in this case. They should, nucleate a consortium through their R&D boards like Army Design Bureau (ADB) and so on. And then, they have to bring together academia, national labs and industry on a common platform. The data model has leadership drawn not just from the armed forces but also from academia, industries, and so on. All four (Armed Forces, academia, labs, industry) are actively involved in the beginning. Different sets of people may take different leadership roles at different stages. In the beginning, when knowledge generation is needed, academia may take leadership. When developing a trade or technology, maybe industry will take a leader's shape and form. But it has to be a participative mode of working, where everyone's voice is heard and valued. What happens is when an armed forces gives us a project, it is like, here is the project, here's the definition. you deliver me this, right? It should not be a boss driving a particular project. Cross-pollination between all the four elements is not just a necessity, but a potential source of groundbreaking innovation. Imagine scientists spending a few months in forward areas, in armed forces and in industry, and similarly embedded personnel from armed forces and industry spending some time in academia during the development of technologies. This is where the seeds of great ideas will be sown. When smaller groups ideate and debate, they can come up with ideas that can revolutionize technology development. This would help us to understand each other's way of thinking, ways and culture. Many times, we fail to understand each other even when we speak the same language. There is an immense pool of talent in academia that can cater for a number of technologies needed for military and civilian applications. There would be over 10,000 faculty if we pool in the resources of all our institutions which is a significant number. Even if 10 per cent of them get involved in defence-related technologies, that is still a pool of thousand very good faculty. Each of those ideas makes sense for a particular project, for a particular kind of project, for a particular kind of technology development. And all the time, what we are trying to do is we are trying to come up with one process that will fit in all this. One size does not fit. We need to think of classification of the kind of projects we do, classification of the kind of technologies that we develop and for different technology development, you know, different categories of technology development. We need to have different strategies and different processes set up. And so that it happens most efficiently and elaborated on that in the previous slides. R&D cannot be treated as regular procurement. The government has to develop an appetite for failure in research projects. Depending upon the category, there are certain technologies that are almost all already there. And then we make a product out of it. We can expect almost a 75%, 80% kind of success rate. Whereas, if there is a technology that we do not understand at all, the success rate is going to be lower. |
|
Mr. Madan Padiki – President TiE, Bangalore The current system has its own set of limitations, which can't be undone overnight. But if the armed forces, academia, and the industry work together on a big goal of what we can envision ten years from now, we can achieve something. "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard," Kennedy told the crowd at Rice University in Houston. The president promised to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade, and seven years later, he delivered with the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Similarly, if all the stakeholders, the industry, academia, government, armed forces, startups, etc., put aside their constraints and pull together, some ground can be gained. One, it will force us to work together, not for today, but for ten years down the line. And we will learn to work together, whether the mission comes alive or not, that is secondary. The power of working together as a consortium, as a collective, rather than a buyer or supplier, a vendor, or a startup will be immense. We will learn to work together better in that process. Maybe something more magical will happen. But we need a unifying force, a unifying call to action and a unifying responder yet, which will bring us all together on something which, like Oppenheimer, or like the man-on- man-on- the moon moment, can be world-changing. But even if it is not, it will be world changing in the way we will work together. As an ecosystem, TiE has 30 chapters and 60 chapters worldwide. We are happy to play any role in catalysing the entire startup ecosystem. |
