Regional

EDS Canada

Managing information to build a more effective military force

Today EDS Canada is ready for a changing world that sees Canadian forces engaged in expeditionary, joint and multi-national operations and sustaining an increased tempo of operations that increases the pressure to manage more effi ciently.

"We believe that our global capabilities and our national experience are more relevant than ever to the needs of the Canadian Forces," said Emile Lindsay, Vice President of EDS Defence Canada. "The goals of any defence organization today are to maximize the available resources and add strength to the operational capability. We know how to help with this."

Military organizations worldwide are seeking to deliver greater military capability. EDS is an agile, innovative partner that can help manage and exploit information to meet military objectives.

"EDS Canada collaborates with our clients to drive tangible business results. EDS combines deep aerospace and defence industry experience and insight with global technology and proven solutions", said Frank Hart, VP and General Manager, EDS Canada.

Acquiring network-centric operational capabilities and modernizing supporting business functions is a complex task that all military forces are undergoing to retain a combat edge. This transformational change is taking place in all domains:

• In the battle space, network-centric warfare is minimizing the delay from sensor to shooter and enhancing interoperability among forces.
• Integrated logistics and supply chain management is making just-in-time logistics an imminent reality on the battlefield whilst allowing a greater range of options for industry to support equipment in the field.
• Military personnel life cycle management and other enabling administrative functions are utilizing modern business methods to minimize overhead costs.
• Coherent, secure infrastructure is ensuring information is available at the right place and the right time with no fear of compromise or threat from hackers or viruses.

With over 40 years' experience, EDS has a deep understanding of defence and connects that understanding to innovation in these domains to provide bold, proven, and scalable solutions that support transformation.

Today, Lindsay explained, EDS Canada wants to make sure that Canadian military planners know and understand his company’s range of expertise, especially at a time when the Canadian Government has made its "Canada First" commitment a priority and the Canadian Armed Forces are simultaneously engaged in combat operations and a massive upgrade of its equipment inventory. Conceptually, the company looks at information technology in the defence sector as three interlocking components: Operations, Support and Infrastructure

Operations
Close to the operational environment, the Canadian Forces has purchased the EDS Advanced Mission Planning Aid (AMPA) system for use in Hawk and Harvard training aircraft in Cold Lake, Alberta and Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. With other militaries, various versions of the AMPA system are also in use with Chinook helicopters and C-130 Hercules K and J models, as well as other fixed and rotary wing aircraft such as the Tornado, Harrier, Lynx and Sea King. AMPA has also been proven in the battlefield on operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq

AMPA is a complete planning system that puts everybody involved in the mission on the same page. Many of AMPA’s capabilities are available in other systems, but it is the only one that offers functionality like Air Tasking Order import, automatic display of Airspace Coordination Orders and NOTAMS all in one portable application

In the Command and Control Area, the EDS Tactical Data Link Network Design Station (TNDS) is a total Link 16 solution for JTIDS/MIDS Network Design and Planning. TNDS is the preferred Network Design tool of the United Kingdom Data Link Operations Centre (DLOC) and the SHAPE Data Link Management and Interoperability Centre (DLMIC).

TNDS provides an intuitive interface that allows rapid conversion of JTIDS/MIDS Information Exchange Requirements into a validated and efficiently allocated Network Design. TNDS also produces the documentation required to support the Network Design and generates the initialisation data for network participants.

Support
EDS provides everything from Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) -based consulting on best-practice process improvements to complex engineering applications and long term Integrated Support System (ISS). EDS helps implement and modernize the processes and supporting applications, integrate processes and information across organization and supply chain, and fine-tune product development environment. The utility-based PLM option provides quick program start-up, training, strong configuration management and basic engineering change-management processes. This enables users to meet product design schedules or long term ISS objectives supporting performance based contracts.

EDS Canada believes there is enormous value in a complete end-to-end armed forces Human Resources system, and those benefits show up most clearly when a system is under stress. In the United Kingdom, EDS implemented a Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system for the Armed Forces Personnel Administration Agency (AFPAA)*, which will deliver millions of dollars in savings over its lifetime but perhaps more importantly, deliver tangible benefits to the war fighter today. In the modern operational environment, when commanders anywhere in the world need skilled people, an integrated HR system, designed for military use, makes that information available right away, not at the far end of a communications chain they must create themselves.

At the other end of the scope, senior commanders need management systems that let them see and manage the armed forces as a single unit with all its knowledge, equipment and capabilities. "The system pays off in other ways. UK Staff in each Service working side by side doing similar jobs were paid differently and receiving very different allowances and supplemental benefits," Emile Lindsay said. "The new system has addressed the problem by enabling harmonising pay and allowances across the three Services. This required a massive change programme that was supported by EDS."

The Canadian Forces have long had a joint payment system, and in addition to integrating the RAF, Royal Navy and British Army pay systems, JPA was designed to do much more than just unify multiple standalone systems. The implementation overhauled the Agency's end-to-end business processes and delivered an improved dynamic service that manages more than 340,000 live pay records, maintains over 570,000 master personnel records and 725,000 pension records, and supports over 8,000 desktops around the world.

In effect, the British armed forces now have a Human Resources system that manages personnel from recruitment through to retirement and releases military personnel to concentrate on other tasks.

*In April 2007, AFPAA merged with the Veterans Agency to form the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA).

Infrastructure
Military information technology must get information to the right place in the right time in absolute security. When EDS implemented DND’s Defence Electronic Mail System, it delivered a functioning, global system to thousands of users.

As head of the ATLAS Consortium for the UK Ministry of Defence, EDS is also leading one of the world’s largest rollouts of a fixed and deployed desktop infrastructure in the world - 150,000 desktops and 300,000 User Accounts at more than 2,000 HQ and field locations in the UK and worldwide, in support of the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) programme.

In the United States armed forces, the EDS Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) serves 800,000 users, making it second in size only to the entire Internet itself as an IP enabled communications system. The NMCI network will eventually connect more than 400,000 workstations and laptops for 500,000 Navy and Marine Corps users across the continental United States, Hawaii, Cuba, Guam, Japan and Puerto Rico.

The NMCI provides the Department of the Navy with a full range of information services on a single intranet, giving the Navy and Marine Corps secure, universal access to integrated voice, video and data communications. A common environment improves security and centralizes information technology budgeting and expenditures.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Department of Defense realized the need for a hardened headquarters and a secure information technology infrastructure. The Pentagon gave EDS the job of creating the Command Communications Survivability Program (CCSP). Today, a single agency manages a common IT infrastructure with simpler service delivery and enhanced security. The US military gained flexibility, redundancy and infrastructure diversity from a $300 million program that eventually involved more than 25 subcontractors and more than 600 personnel.

"In the United States military, we are responsible for the success of the Common Access Card program," Lindsay said. The Common Access Card is a world-wide, forces-wide program that gives civilian and military personnel a single card that combines identification, physical access and computer access capabilities to control access at more than 950 military facilities in the United States and 27 countries throughout the world. The smart cards are issued to more than 10 million active duty, reserve, National Guard and DoD civilian personnel and provide authorized users physical access to military sites worldwide and need-to-know entry onto DoD networks and computer systems.

Partnerships
Around the world and in the field, military personnel know that nothing gets done without partners. EDS has established the EDS Agility Alliance which combines market-leading infrastructure, application and business process providers chartered with driving industry innovation and cost leadership. Together, EDS and our partners provide the applications, business processes and IT solutions needed to meet requirements for productivity and innovation.

Each member of this alliance brings unprecedented domain, technology and thought leadership - providing integrated technology and business services now and in the future.

Working in partnerships takes learning, training and experience. "Our partners include industry leaders like Oracle, Cisco, Sun, Dell and Microsoft, and we collaborate closely with other major defence contractors around the world," said John Cousens, Assistant Vice President of EDS Defence Sales "Today, we can say that EDS Canada is a full and functioning member of a mature global defence capability."

Finally, EDS has recognized that being continually aligned with the demands facing defence departments globally is critical. This alignment comes in the form of the EDS Defence Advisory Council (DAC) which was formed in March 2006 to provide independent strategic advice to EDS senior management regarding business with key regional, political, military and industrial leaders

EDS appointed Sir Anthony Bagnall to lead the council. Bagnall is a retired senior UK Royal Air Force commander with 41 years of service. He most recently served as UK Vice Chief of the Defence staff for four years before his retirement in 2005.

The DAC has eight non-EDS members, called councilors, from Australia, Canada, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. All have extensive experience in the military at very senior levels or in defense-related businesses. The council also includes members of the EDS Executive Committee as well as EDS regional and country leaders.

The new operational environment, a new Canada First philosophy and large-scale equipment upgrades all mean opportunities for positive change. EDS has NATO-blessed systems that can go into theatre right away and has management systems that ensure that every soldier is doing a soldier's job. EDS Canada is in the right place at the right time.