PODCAST: Plan Jericho open for business

Announcer:

Welcome to the Defence Connect Podcast with your host, Phil Tarrant.

Phil:

Good day everyone. It's Phil Tarrant here. I am the host of the Defence Connect podcast. Thanks for tuning in. I'm joined by my regular co-host, I've got Paul Robinson here. Paul, how are you going mate?

Paul:

Very good Phil, yourself?

Phil:

Good. I've got a bit of an interesting podcast today.

Paul

Definitely!

Phil

I think that our listeners are going to find it pretty interesting. Both from an Air Force point of view and some of the great work that our people are doing right now, but also about the future for the Air Force and the way it's going to be transformed over the period ahead, with some very competent and capable leaders, who are helping drive the development of our air fighting capabilities, moving forward. We're privileged to have Group Captain, Pete Mitchell in the studio. Pete, how are you going mate?

Pete:

I'm very well thanks Phil, how are you?

Phil:

I'm really good. Thanks for coming in. We've been wanting to have you on the show for a little while and the work that you guys are doing, is pretty popular. Every meeting that myself or Paul goes to, if we're talking about Air Force, Jericho always comes up. I hope to achieve a couple of things out of our chat today, mate. One is to get a greater understanding - for our listeners to get a greater understanding about what Jericho is and what it's trying to achieve.

More importantly or connected to that, I really want to get a bit of understanding about how industry and Air Force can work better together, to help just give a bit of meat behind the whole Jericho platform and plan and help them play a better role, to support Air Force do what they need to do.

Pete:

Absolutely.

Phil:

That's the sort of content I'd like to have a chat to you today mate but that sounds all very formal and serious. What I'm really interested in, I Googled you before you turned up and I'm not going to ... I'll keep good on this but you're now ... It's got you flying a desk, right?

You've got a very proactive job and just before we came on air you told me a little bit about your schedule mate, you're all over the place, flying the flag for Jericho.

Pete:

Yeah, absolutely. We are extremely busy. We're a small team and we try and make sure that we're available and accessible to a whole bunch of people. There's obviously military customers or military people that we engage with but also, certainly, a significant amount of industry.

Certainly looking to take perhaps a slightly non-traditional approach to how perhaps the military might have approached the industry and those types of engagements in the past, to become more accessible and there's some reasons why we want to do that and we can get into those a little bit later.

Phil:

I found it really refreshing, the approach or the mindset the Air Force currently has towards its ongoing transformation and I think that the way in which its appointed guys like yourself, to lead the charge in this. You're a young bloke, you're not an old guy but you have a quite a lot of operational experience. Most recently, you were CO of 75th Squadron.

Before that, you've worked in numerous different areas across Air Force, both operationally but also within the headquarters type of thing. How you're finding the transition, just personally from those real operational requirements, fast jets and that type of stuff and some of the culture associated with that? I say with a bit of a smirk on my face.

Pete, to a role which is now very much geared towards connecting Air Force and industry. How you're going with that transformation personally?

Pete:

It's significantly different obviously. We see in Air Force that almost everybody starts out at the tactical level, becoming a technical master of their particular trade, whether that's fixing airplanes, flying airplanes, supporting airplanes, that you spend a lot of your time developing those specific skills and there's a clear reason why we do that. That's where we draw Air Force's capability from.

You spend a significant amount of time doing that and then certainly when you get an opportunity to not only come into the Jericho role but to come into working at the top of Air Force, within Air Force headquarters and I work directly for the Deputy Chief of the Air Force and the Air Commander, which again is a little bit non-traditional.

I work for two two-star officers. That in itself, provides you with a unique perspective, that you don't traditionally have that experience or exposure to that level of either thinking or engagement. It has been a challenge but it's certainly a challenge I've enjoyed and I'm extremely lucky to have the position I've got, to be able to move flexibly across a whole bunch of areas, whether that's industry engagement or dealing with other parts of the Air Force or other parts of the Defence organisation and I enjoy that.

Whilst it's not perhaps as exciting or as engaging sometimes, it's just engaging on a different level.

Phil:

It’s a very different level.

Pete:

That's okay. It's a good challenge and I'm enjoying that opportunity to learn.

Paul:

Do you think it helps though, that you've had that operational experience to guide the decisions that you're making now?

Pete:

Certainly having that perspective is useful because ultimately, if we look at Jericho, it has a vision to transform the Air Force into an agile and adaptive force, that can operate in the coming information age and ultimately, how do we harness the combat potential of an integrated force? Obviously having a, I suppose a tactical background.

That operational experience, keeps you focused on, ultimately that's what we're trying to achieve, that's what the government needs the Air Force to do. Having that perspective is extremely useful and we need to keep sight of that I think, and that's really important for us to keep sight of why we're transforming and that's to deliver the combat potential of the force that the government provides.

Phil:

Let's have a quick chat about Jericho. I think everyone in Defence knows about Jericho? I think there is some misconceptions about what Jericho is and what the long-term goal for the Jericho plan is. It would be great if you could just give us a little bit about the background of Jericho.

From what I understand I was looking at the name and obviously the old Google gives you a lot of context about why it's called Jericho and people were talking about, I think it was the raid in Amiens in '44, trying to free up resistance fighters and the whole idea was about breaking down walls and that sort of stuff. Is that the metaphor that's really there?

Pete:

It is actually, yeah. Rather than perhaps traditionally looking at how we might deal with Air Force in various stove pipes, whether that was platforms or engineers versus pilots or whatever, we really see that to get or enhance the combat potential of the Air Force, we need to look at breaking down some of those stove pipes.

Certainly Operation Jericho, as you've mentioned there, resonates at least visually in breaking down the walls between both internal Air Force perhaps barriers and also ones perhaps more broadly within Defence. Jericho itself as our vision, is to be adaptive, agile. A truly joint force that can operate in the information age and under that, we have three core themes. The first is to harness the combat potential of a truly joint force.

The second theme, is to develop an empowered and innovative work force and thirdly, is to look at influencing the way that we acquire and sustain capability. We certainly see that certainly theme two, empowering our people and theme three, changing the way we acquire and sustain our capability, is ultimately to support the theme one and that is to enhance the combat potential of an integrated force.

Phil:

The key themes that you've outlined there, whether it's trying to transform the Air Force or trying to transform any type of business, all those three things are absolutely essential. You know what the purpose is and what you're trying to achieve but you understand that the people are going to be the key driver to achieve that, as well as the kit they use in order to do that.

It's very simple, the way I think the Jericho plan has been outlined but it's the process to get there, in terms of the thinking, to those three key core pillars or themes, to drive Jericho. Was that quite an organic process or how did that dialogue happen, to actually get to those three points?

Pete:

For sure and we move back I suppose, 10 years or so, when a number of key individuals at the top of Air Force, started to have a look at what we might need to do, when things like the Joint Strike Fighter start coming on board and that started to sow the seed, as to how we're going to transform the Air Force there and that's taken quite a while to mature and then obviously, Jericho itself got launched in February 2015.

Really, it probably was the Joint Strike Fighter that came along to go, "Hey, this platform, as good as it is, won't achieve what we need it to achieve, unless we actually start looking at the things it will interact with because otherwise, it will just become a very expensive hornet or super hornet that will replace it one for one. How do we actually capture that?” It was deliberate in having a vision that we could get buy-in from.

In particular, obviously Air Force individuals. Being able to see that vision and actually wanted to buy into it. Then from there, breaking down why we might to do that and distilling, what can be quite a complex, strategic message or reasoning, into something that's relatively simple and easy to articulate, so that across the board, people can look at it and go, "Okay, that really resonates with me and I want to be part of that and I want to help transform this Air Force."

There is a significant amount of work that sits behind that but that is one of the key successes, I think of Jericho.

Phil:

These sort of goals are simple goals, that should be reasonably easy to articulate. Just with you and the way in which you prioritise your role. Do you frame most of the things you do against one of those key themes or whether or not you're adding value to one of those particular things, in terms of any of the developmental work that you're doing, like a podcast for example?

Pete:

Certainly, we do. We try and make sure that we understand why we're doing that. For this one in particular, what interests me about this opportunity, is the ability to get the Jericho message out to industry and certainly our message to industry is that, we're extremely keen to change the way that we've partnered with industry in the past and certainly see that industry has now been announced as the ninth fundamental input to capability.

That is now an acknowledgement by government, that Defence can't do this by ourselves. We then look at that and certainly my role as one of the Directors of Jericho, is to make sure that we continue to put out our message and continue that engagement because we see that is critical. I do spend a lot of my time going out and engaging with people, again, whether that's with Defence people or with industry or with other groups or think tanks.

Then certainly the continual message of why we're doing Jericho and what's behind that and what benefits there are for industry in particular, is really key.

Phil:

I think we're fortunate as a nation, to have a depth of talent across our defence industry, from obviously our primes and their capabilities but through to our SME space as well. There's some guys doing some exceptional technology right now. You've got some great providers of services and support infrastructure for Air Force or the wider defence force.

How do you feel in terms of the conversations that you've been having with industry? Let’s say SME land, the opportunities for Air Force or Jericho to embrace some of that sort of latent capabilities we have there but more so, how do we help SMEs and wider defence contractors better gear themselves, so they can work more effectively with Air Force?

Pete:

Certainly Jericho from an Air Force perspective, is a good start. To be able to actually put out what our vision is for Air Force and actually give ... Perhaps “a beacon” may be a little strong of a term but give them something to at least aim at and go, "Okay, well if I understand what Jericho is and I understand that they're looking to partner, then I can at least reach in and that can potentially be the conduit into Air Force.”

It's certainly our experience when we go out and talk to a small to medium enterprise, that they resonate with wanting to change the way that they interact with Defence. They certainly appreciate the openness that we can provide and we've also seen that when we go and talk to, not only small to medium enterprise but also to various academic institutions, about what areas of research they might be going into.

That's where we see that a lot of the technology and innovation will come, from the small to medium enterprise and even from academics and the like. Where we need to explore those concepts and be more accessible as an Air Force and be more proactive in engaging with those types of people, so that we can actually partner with them and bring in, new technology, innovative technology, that can actually give us an advantage for any mission that we may be asked to do by the government.

Phil:

For our listeners who are defence contractors, whether they're primes or SMEs, is there any way in which they can best reach out to Air Force? Is there any particular way you've seen good businesses go about doing that?

Pete:

Yeah. I mean, certainly they engage with us directly, so we're more than happy to have a look and we have links on the Air Force page, to come straight into the Jericho team, so they can e-mail us. The other one, that the whole of defence has established is and it will be, I believe, opened fairly soon and that is the innovation hub ...

Paul:

Yeah, that's soon.

Pete:

Which will be done fairly shortly. That's really again, that and the Center for Defence Industry Capability, the CDIC, those two initiatives we see, aren't the only way to do that but certainly are a good start to looking at perhaps non-traditional defence ... Other than the defence primes for example, actually be able to reach out and touch Defence and have a look at what type of innovation and technologies they can do.

I think that will be really critical to see how that steps off here shortly and certainly Air Force's role is in supporting people to go through that innovation process. It's not just the Hub's responsibility to reach out and try and call for nominations or what not. It's also Air Force's role obviously, to try and guide people towards that and then sponsor them through that process.

Ultimately, the services, not the Innovation Hub, will be the end users of any product that come through, so we obviously need to make sure that we understand those opportunities and sponsor them through.

Phil:

The post Defence White Paper - The attitude of government, Department of Defence and relevant associated bodies, the openness that we've seen and you know, down in Russell or speaking with relevant people, the openness for Defence to be truly consultative now with defence industry, it's rapidly changed and that culture shift has been something which I think has been required within Defence for quite a period of time.

It's now starting to happen, you're starting to see a snowball effect and we're very bullish about it and we'll try and do our best to try and support that. In terms of Jericho itself and the transformation of the Air Force and a truly networked integrated platform for I guess, war fighting capabilities, you've got Air Force working with Navy, working with Army. Traditionally quite closed shops and haven't always collaborated as well as what they could have.

Then you've also got, I guess, the culture within Air Force itself, that needs to change new ideas, new thinking, to embrace the capabilities that something like Jericho can deliver. Can you talk to me a little bit about those sorts of changing of culture because I noticed that you've got a HR degree and I'm going to be drawing on some of that, to try and support this collaborative change in evolution.

Pete:

That might be going back almost a couple of decades, I think when I first got my HR degree and perhaps, that might have been a means to an end of becoming a pilot perhaps in the Air Force. Certainly, the first one I'll talk -  Air Force internal. Bottom up innovation - certainly one of the concepts within Jericho, is a top down strategy meets bottom up innovation.

What's that to say? Generically, Chief of Air Force in concert with the Jericho team, will set the vision for Jericho and the Air Force, about top down, "This is the key principles that we need to look at." But it's an acknowledgement that we can't do that as a purely top down driven approach. We need to have bottom up innovation and buy-in.

We certainly need to allow that and develop a culture of being able to be innovative and listen to some of those ideas because if we can get that and that ground swell of thinking and approach to business, then right across Air Force's core business, is where we see we'll get the most traction. It can't be just me and my team of seven trying to transform the whole Air Force.

I can come up with some ideas, I can set some of the key visions and principles but we really need to get the buy-in from the bottom up. We've done a significant number of activities and we go out and talk to the bases about how we can enable that and actually, how do we empower them to do that? Certainly from a joint force perspective, we are very keen to work with obviously Army and Navy.

Some of our key, I suppose achievables in the last 12 to 18 months, have actually been for the other forces. In particular, there's a couple that I can talk about. One of them is what they call, an Airview 360 capability, which is the ability to connect the platform, like the C-17, using beyond line of sight communications to receive full motion video from drones or facilitate Skype calls and the equivalent. That's not for necessarily Air Force customers.

That's for potentially obviously the application for Army forces to maintain situational awareness, while they might be in the back of an Air Force C17, while they're deployed half way around the world. Rather than getting out at the other end and going, "Okay, what's happened in the last 12 hours?" They can maintain that connectivity. That's certainly one and the other one was an airborne gateway demonstration, that we did in March this year.

That was putting an airborne platform over an Army force, supported by an air element and actually doing the translation between, various data links that traditionally haven't been able to share information. That actually allows the digital connectivity between forces and once you have digital connectivity, all of the sudden now, you can go backwards and forwards with the equivalent of SMS messages, for us having to rely on perhaps vulnerable two way voice communications alone and exchanging data.

Even positional data between each other, without having to talk about it, gives us a significant capability advantage in doing that. Again, that's not specific to an Air Force requirement. It does increase our situation awareness but we saw that it dramatically increased Army’s situational awareness. Bringing the other services along and being able to support, how do I bring a Joint Strike Fighter, a 5th generation platform, down to a soldier who's still out in the dust with the flies?

He wants every now and again, to be able to access that 5th generation fighter. We need to make sure that we can do that. We can't just operate in isolation.

Phil:

It's going back to an earlier point of yours, the acquisition of the F-35’s, 5th generation fighter, is pretty much a catalyst and you mentioned 10 years ago, the discussions, it was the catalyst for having a 5th generation Air Force and this is now language which is used by the Air Force and that connectivity between the fighter and the rest of the Air Force all working in unison makes sense.

Is Army and Navy using the same language? Is 5th generation, is that something that's going down through those levels or is that an education piece that's sort of still happening?

Pete:

It's certainly an education piece that's still happening and I think, we have to be careful, I suppose. Originally the 5th generation fighter came. We've sort of taken up perhaps a little bit of a poetic licence, about what a 5th generation force what might look like but it certainly resonates in that, it needs to be more than just a 5th generation fighter.

We need a 5th generation force. What that actually means, there's some debate in strategic circles about what the actual definition is but that doesn't matter. What I suppose it does say, that is Air Force is in a position to start thinking about these challenges because we've got this platform that is going to be here. In 2018, JSF will be here. We'll have this 5th generation platform. We have to start thinking about that right here, right now.

Perhaps and without ... Certainly don't want to talk ill of the other services but they are probably a little bit further away from achieving some of those 5th generation capabilities but certainly where Navy will go, with the Air Warfare Destroyer and the Future Submarine, will be those sorts of challenges. They're probably, not I suppose, as far down the acquisition of those type of capabilities, as Air Force is.

Purely just based on the fact that the Joint Strike Fighter will be here in almost less than two years time, is our drive to make sure that we have to start addressing it and any lessons and support that we can provide our sister services to bring them along on that transformation, then certainly we're looking to exploit those opportunities.

Phil:

With the JSF coming in 2018, obviously there's been a lot in the media over the years and beating up the fighter. Obviously pointing out all the things that people think aren't great or it’s not a very smart purchase and I don't want to get into that. My conversations with industry and also guys like yourself, is that they're extremely bullish about the capabilities that the F-35 delivers and the way in which it's going to change how, as a fighting force, we go about our business.

Would you say that the wider Air Force, guys in your position, who have been in the cockpit, through to the guys who are repairing the planes on the ground or administrative personnel, would you say that they are exceptionally bullish about the new F-35 and the way in which it's going to help shape our Air Force moving forward?

Pete:

Yeah. I think so. I think it's an exciting time. It's probably once in a career, that you bring in a truly new capability. Obviously, we'd probably put our toe in the water in this generation, in bringing in the Super Hornet and then obviously the Growler but the JSF is a different prospect altogether again. I think there are a lot of people that are excited about that and certainly, as you said, the capabilities are significant.

It's difficult obviously to talk about those types of capabilities but ultimately, that is the best fighter that our government can afford to buy and that's what they've done and they made a commitment to that early, so we need to now make that work and we're extremely comfortable in making that work but it's not without its challenges and they're probably beyond the platform. It's, how do we sustain them?

It brings a whole different thinking based on security. How we sustain it. How we integrate that platform into the rest of the force and certainly, that's a challenge. Not only for the Air Force but also for industry as well and that creates some significant opportunities for industry and Australian industry's certainly made a very good start in supporting that and winning some key contracts to support, not only the Australian JSF but obviously the global fleet.

Phil:

I think it's great. Any way in which we can project Australian's manufacturing or technological capabilities on a global stage, I think we should be trying to promote that as much as possible. It's good to see so many Aussie businesses involved in the development of the JSF to date but I think once they arrive and on the ground, it's going to be great for the Hunter region.

I know you spent some time up there, speaking at I think it was the HunterNet Conference and there was a lot of businesses, SMEs and related defence orientated businesses up there, who were extremely happy about the deployment of the JSF into Williamtown and what it's going to mean for local business.

Pete:

Yeah, absolutely. Even just from infrastructure alone, I think there's just short of a billion dollars, has been invested into Williamtown to support the JSF. Obviously there's a lot of that that will flow back into the local industry or the national industry, in doing that. I think up at Tindal, in Katherine of the Northern Territory, you know, there's just short of about half a billion dollars worth of infrastructure work alone.

Then from there, obviously as we look at what the JSF brings, I think there's a whole bunch of areas that are perhaps not traditional defence areas, that we can start looking at, about how we either support that platform or how we support the concepts, perhaps that Jericho's looking at, to explore. They might bring in non-traditional industry and how we engage with those to support again, either the platform or the concepts and capabilities that that type of thinking and that type of platform open up to us.

Phil:

Jericho's been around for a year and a half or so, coming up to two years.

Pete:

Coming up to two years, in February '17.

Phil:

I know when Jericho was launched, there was some immediate wins that wanted to happen over the sort of two years and you've outlined some of those things that have happened thus far. A lot of ground work’s gone into this transformational change, that's going to happen in the period ahead, decade ahead.

Your key focus or the key focus of Jericho into the future, those mid to long-term goals, how are you prioritising those at the moment? What are the key things that you're trying to get right, to lay the ground work for the rest of the stuff in the future?

Pete:

For sure. There's a couple in there. Certainly, being able to mature and adopt a different way of acquiring sustained capabilities, one of our key focus areas over the next 18 months. Air Force doesn't own the acquisition cycle. That's done by CASG, so we are working closely with CASG, to look at testing our methodology in how we might acquire and sustain capability and get that adopted by CASG.

We need to allow them to pick that up, so that Army or Navy could go to them with a particular project or a problem and actually repeat that methodology and not just have that as an Air Force stove pipe. That's certainly one key area that we're very keen to continue focusing on. The other area would be, to work on our empowerment and innovation within the workforce, to continue to get that bottom up innovation and those ideas and make sure that we maintain and develop more momentum in that regard.

That one's obviously a little bit more difficult to measure but we have some ideas around that, that we're continuing to develop. The other one is that, Jericho has a program of work, so there are 16 specific projects that we've identified, are the key right here, right now vectors that we need to work on. We're certainly very keen to continue to progress those because we've identified those. We've had that out now for 18 months and we've got some good results in most of those areas.

We need to continue to progress that because that's actually what's going to drive the actual transformational change, as opposed to just the transformational idea. We need to put that into action. Certainly, I'm very keen to continue focusing on the 16 projects and make sure that they have the tools that they need to continue to progress those. Otherwise we'll start having ... I can't be here in 12 months time saying, "We're still doing Jericho and I've still got some good ideas and what not."

I actually need to continue to demonstrate actual achievables and that's probably the focus for us. Then obviously, continually engage with industry. Industry have been very keen to hear about what Jericho's been doing. We've done a number of activities with a number of different partners, within industry. That again, I think needs to continue to develop and transition because whilst businesses will want to come and turn up and listen to a Jericho presentation, that doesn't do anything for their bottom line.

Air Force understands that and we're probably maturing our understanding, in that the businesses are there to make a profit. If we can partner with them to give them ideas, receive their ideas and actually start delivering contracts for them to be able to see the tangibles out of Jericho, then that's a critical point. Again, in 12 months time, they won't come and listen to me again talk about Jericho, if they're not necessarily seeing some contracts come out, that are as result of Air Force’s transformation.

Phil:

Keep engaged mate. Let's keep talking to us and let us know what you're seeing coming out of industry, when those things start to happen. Really quite interested also in some more information about how you're working with industry itself, as we go down this path and these changes take place. Paul, mate anything? We've run out of time unfortunately but ...

Paul:

I've got a million questions actually, but is it important for you to not just interact with defence companies and defence contractors? I can imagine the technology that goes into these aircraft, are pretty advanced. Having companies that weren't necessarily defence before, engaging with you?

Pete:

It's critical. We see that a lot of the areas where advanced technology is starting to develop. Perhaps non-traditional military technology. We talk about big data, data mining, data analytics, there is application across the resource and finance sector, where those types of organisations that may be looking at, could actually potentially have the opportunity to come and have a look at some of our challenges, regarding big data and data analytics.

We look at nanotechnology, about miniaturisation in the application, that might be a commercial application for that but then certainly, there might be ... There's certainly military applications as well, where again as you say, non-traditional defence industry, looking at being able to see where the next technology advantage and innovative thought on how we might apply that to a military context or problem, is critical and there are a number of others.

We have a look at the development of 3D printing or quantum computing and those sort of concepts which, how do they apply to a military context? We're very excited about those technologies, data visualisation and the like.

Phil:

Sometimes the mind boggles with that. Some of the work going on in our universities, is just mind blowing and if we can extract some of that information, some of those research that our academics are achieving and put into applied sense, in terms of military capabilities, that reinforces our position in the air and on the ground.

Pete:

Absolutely.

Phil:

We should be looking to champion it. Pete, mate we've run out time. I've really enjoyed it. Thanks for the chat. Remember to check us out at defenceconnect.com.au. You can follow us on all the social stuff, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. You can follow me at defenceconnect (Linkedin). If you got any questions for us, if you want to know anything more about Jericho or any questions in particular for Group Captain Pete Mitchell, you can e-mail us, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We'll try and get them over to Pete and hopefully get some answers for you. Pete for me, the way I summarise this quick chat and there's nothing really quick, we could probably talk about this all day is, I would take out of it, the fact that there is a genuine culture shift, in terms of the way in which Air Force is thinking about its future capabilities.

The process that's taking place right now, to truly become a 5th generation fighting force, which is linked to obviously the JSF but how that's going to play down or pan out to the other areas of service as well. I think also, for this podcast and particular our readership, the opportunities that's going to come out of stuff like Jericho, for wider defence business, is absolutely key.

I think my recommendation to all of our listeners and people who are involved in defence industry, I'd be really having a look at what particular capabilities Jericho is looking for and really interfacing with Defence and understanding those things and look for how you can get involved. Pete mentioned that there's quite a lot of information on the Defence website, as a first port of call.

As I said beforehand, if there's any other questions you want, send it over to us and we'll try and get them answered for you. Peter again mate, thank you so much. Paul, I'll see you next week. To our listeners, thanks for tuning in. Bye bye.