Logistics Advancement Through Open Architecture Application - Flipbook - Page 10
Our Perspective:
It’s All About The Mission
The global political environment, and associated military challenges, is rapidly changing. For the 昀椀rst time since the cold war, the
increasing threat of peer-on-peer confrontation is requiring more complex systems to be developed. No longer can we assume to
impose air-dominance of an operational theatre and 昀氀y remotely controlled propeller aircraft almost unhindered. The technical domains of electronic warfare, long-range weapon, layered ISTAR, air-defense, and communications are highly contested areas that
span land, sea, air and space. Maintaining operational effectiveness in all of these capability areas is critical if we are to deliver a
winning competitive edge for our War昀椀ghters.
To have the best chance of success, military planners must take a holistic view of military requirements, including present and expected future challenges, and assess them alongside engineering experts who understand the art of the possible and can develop
an engineering strategy for the required military capability, rather than for any particular vehicle platform.
The mission-focused engineering requirements can subsequently be derived to particular systems. Although this is not dis-similar to current requirements analysis, OA allows common speci昀椀cation of all areas where requirements overlap exists between
programs. Understanding the holistic mission, and the deliberate use of OA, allows program common elements to be built to the
same standard, or use the same products.
Understanding all the logistical elements of a MOSA environment, and the bene昀椀ts at each step, are critical to delivering capability.
To realize the full potential for OA to deliver advanced capability bene昀椀ts there needs to be structure within the enterprise of interest, whether that is DoD, Navy, Air Force, Army, Space Force, multiples or sub-domains of any of those. The enterprise de昀椀nition
will be determined by the scope of the requirements for each mission assessment.
•
Solicit input from all relevant sources to implement an Enterprise Architecture Framework assessment of the operational, security, safety, functional, interoperability etc. requirements of the represented mission capabilities.
•
The Enterprise Architecture Framework drives out the identi昀椀cation of candidate common products, where modularity
is valuable, and provides traceability of products to business goals
•
The data boundaries of common products can be captured in Domain Model packages, and standard functional descriptions can be captured in a model
•
Standard product speci昀椀cations can then be captured in various standards depending on implementation requirements
of each Program
The Data Model packages ensure semantic interoperability and a testable data boundary, which along with the functional descriptions provide the top-level product requirements from which implementation speci昀椀cations can be derived according to different
implementation standards.
9