Ensuring infrastructure investment planned under the Strategic Defence Review is efficient by design

How effective design focusing on end-user capability can help meet the UK’s evolving defence challenges

Delivering design “right first time” is critical to meeting the scale and pace of defence infrastructure investment set out in the UK’s Strategic Defence Review. Collaboration, speed, efficiency and access to capability within the private sector is key to achieving that, according to Mott MacDonald portfolio lead for defence buildings Mike Smart.

Infrastructure is integral to the ambitious goals set out in the recently published Strategic Defence Review (SDR). The move towards “warfighting readiness” in the UK requires increased and updated infrastructure to house, train and maintain the hardware and personnel to meet these challenges – and quickly. Business as usual, often via inefficient transactional engagement, is not an option in these uncertain times, so increased funding must be accompanied by a radical change in ways of working. Right first time design will play a critical role in meeting the scale and pace, of the SDR’s recommendations so drawing on the capability, efficiency and adaptability of the private sector will be key to its success.

There are currently many barriers to developing or upgrading infrastructure quickly. Getting a defence project from initial concept to detailed design can be frustratingly slow and unnecessarily expensive, with existing processes sometimes unwieldy and unfit for purpose in today’s defence landscape. The future ways of working suggested in the SDR align more with the way industry approaches large infrastructure projects across sectors such as transport, water and energy. The success of these schemes is, in part, down to a commitment to collaboration, partnership working and early supply chain engagement to ensure designs are right first time, avoiding delays, overspends and risks to reputation.

Layers of complexity

One of the main issues with designing defence infrastructure is the sheer number of, often conflicting, standards that have to be complied with. As an example, some projects Mott MacDonald has worked on involve both the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO), the arm of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) that oversees the defence estate, and international clients such as the United States Visiting Forces (USVF). Not only do design standards vary by country, often different bases and even organisations will have their own additional regulations, not to mention civilian design standards, such as the Building Regulations, to comply with. The ability to understand, navigate and reconcile these complex and often contradictory standards is vital to delivering the design in an efficient way.

On a recent USVF project, Mott MacDonald, working for DIO, identified the most onerous standards out of all those that applied and ensured the design met those as a minimum. This helped to create a framework to drive efficiency that is now being applied on other projects to speed up decision-making, improve productivity elsewhere and advise clients on technical and commercial strategies.

In addition, Mott MacDonald’s global expertise and presence has allowed us to mobilise our most technically qualified people to specific project challenges. This has been demonstrated on USVF projects, utilising our US qualified fire protection engineers to check design compliance and also deploying UK based submarine dockyard experience on the AUKUS Programme in Australia.

The power of early engagement

Working collaboratively with the client’s project team from day one is key to reducing the risk of getting it wrong. Rather than the current linear process, whereby the client commissions a piece of infrastructure, a consultant works up the design, then a construction team builds it, a more collaborative process is required. In this way all parties – client, contractors, designers, the supply chain and end users – are involved in key design decisions focusing on delivering the end-user capability. Currently, problems may only come to light at construction stage, leading to expensive redesigns. Working with all stakeholders from the beginning of a project helps to identify early warnings and proactively resolve issues, ensuring designs are not just compliant but buildable and, ultimately, meet the needs of those who'll use it, rather than just being a modern copy of a similar past project – saving both time and money.

However, placing too much focus on the initial cost of delivery and not looking at the asset lifecycle costs can also create issues when it comes to maintenance, upgrade and, ultimately, decommissioning. Taking a whole life approach to planning a new defence asset and designing for a capability, rather than just designing a building, could remove or reduce these issues.

To make the shift, more time will be needed upfront to fully understand the whole life requirements of an asset. This will allow us to bring all the data together to see where the gaps, risks, and deficiencies are. The automotive, rail, and aviation industries have already used model-based systems engineering (MBSE) – which is the next step on from systems engineering – to effectively tackle this challenge. MBSE could also be the solution for the defence industry.

MBSE effectively creates a golden thread that allows understanding of how the subsystems within a project are linked and the different functionalities. Essentially, it creates a single source of truth that removes siloed information and creates a cohesive picture of a project. By understanding how everything is connected rather than viewing it in silos, project teams can truly understand the risk a project is carrying. Teams can then either progress with the knowledge of risk and the consequences or can stop and course correct to avoid the impact – financial or delays – of that risk at a later point.

MBSE allows project teams to see the impact of changing one parameter and the knock-on effects. So, for a defence project, where you might have 10 requirements from different users, you can see how changing one affects everything else. Through this knowledge, teams can understand what needs to be prioritised and the trade-offs involved to get the final result needed by the client and provide evidence that the solution has balanced risks to levels that are demonstrably As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP)

Embedded expertise

The SDR represents a major shift in the way the defence sector approaches critical projects but this also creates an opportunity to deliver a step change in how it approaches the design too with a shift to a whole life focus. Mott MacDonald has been working with the major players in the UK defence sector for 40 years, helping to deliver some of the most complex critical military infrastructure that has kept the nation safe to date. We now stand ready to support the defence sector in putting the SDR into action and create a modern military that is equipped to meet the challenges of our increasingly unpredictable world.