The NATO Research and Technology Organisation (RTO) promotes and conducts co-operative scientific research and exchange of technical information amongst 28 NATO nations and 38 NATO partners.  The largest such collaborative body in the world, the RTO encompasses over 3000 scientists and engineers addressing the complete scope of defence technologies and operational domains.  This effort is supported by an executive agency, the Research and Technology Agency (RTA), that facilitates the collaboration by organising a wide range of studies, workshops, symposia, and other forums in which researchers can meet and exchange knowledge.

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It seems that nearly all national defence planners face a familiar problem:  budgets for modernization are severely impacted by unanticipated expenditures necessary for training, maintenance, personnel and disposal costs associated with equipment currently in their inventory.  While this is a common situation, it is manageable and often avoidable with the proper application of Life Cycle Costing (LCC) principles. What is Life Cycle Costing?  Quite simply, it is the process of collecting, estimating and quantitatively analyzing cost data throughout the entire service life of a system, in order to produce a realistic projection of the “true” cost of a procurement commitment.

In the fall of 2009, the System Analysis and Studies (SAS) Panel of the RTO published the “Code of Practice for Life Cycle Costing”, a practical handbook designed to illustrate LCC methods and benefits to decision-makers involved with procurement choices. This work, produced by SAS-069, captured and synthesized ground-breaking work in this field from previous SAS studies and from the AC/327 Working Group 3.

It was recently announced that because of the importance of LCC, the NATO Defence Procurement Management Course has incorporated a review of LCC principles in its finance lesson, citing SAS-069’s efforts.  This course, given once a year in Ottobrunn, Germany, trains middle and senior level NATO managers in defence procurement, with an emphasis on cooperative international acquisition.

Now, in order to maximize the dissemination of the life cycle costing approach, the NATO Life Cycle Management Group, AC/327, is leading the incorporation of the Code’s guidelines into an Allied Publication. This will complement the current NATO publication, ALCCP-1, and will ensure that these important principles remain a permanent and accessible resource available to all NATO members.

These efforts to institutionalize the practice of LCC in defence procurement will go a long way in helping optimize NATO defence investments. As defence budgets throughout the Alliance continue to feel the pinch of the current economic environment, such work is essential to ensuring greater capability in the future.

PrintTuesday 12 January, 2010

In today’s dynamic environment, interoperability (i.e. the degree to which entities are able to co-operate in achieving a common goal) is a vital prerequisite for efficient NATO operations. Considering the variety of systems across the NATO and Partner nations, interoperability remains a tough challenge. Easy and simple solutions just don’t exist.

With this challenge in mind, the Information and Systems Technology Panel developed the IST-088 Lecture Series on “Interoperability Issues” to tightly focus on interoperability considerations for C4I Systems. Specifically, the lectures addressed designing interoperable architectures, tactical communications, multilateral interoperability programs, as well as semantic interoperability.

The lecture series team, consisting of experts from Germany, NC3A and Poland, was led by Professor Milan Snajder from the Czech Republic. The event was hosted in Bucharest, Romania; Warsaw, Poland, and Liptovsky Mikulas, Czech Republic from 6 to 12 November 2009. Educational notes from the lecture series are available on the RTO website. The RTO wishes to thank the nations who graciously hosted the lectures and to offer hearty congratulations to the IST-088 Lecture Series Team for a highly successful event!

PrintTuesday 12 January, 2010