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Downer has announced the launch of a specialised division of Downer Professional Services business, focused on mission engineering to deliver end-to-end support to Defence.
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Mission engineering represents a transformative methodology which seeks to align Defence’s capabilities with specific mission objectives, or put simply, prioritising mission effectiveness over individual platforms or technologies.
This move strengthens Downer Professional Service’s commitment to accelerating Defence’s capability realisation in a timely and cost-effective manner to address strategic risks as identified in the Albanese government’s 2023 Defence Strategic Review.
Spearheaded by veteran Air Force officer Rachel Hatton, who has stepped into the newly created role of head of mission engineering.
Hatton welcomed this development, saying, “The formation of this practice highlights our clear understanding of and commitment to our role as a steadfast partner to the Australian government, delivering complex projects that safeguard Australia’s future.”
Downer Professional Service’s dedicated cross-functional mission engineering practice will serve as a central hub for the delivery of mature end-to-end mission engineering services, including:
- Mission thread development: development of mission threads, mission engineering threads and mission architectures to establish a hierarchy of mission objectives, operational needs, capability requirements, and optimised solution design, linked to national objectives.
- Capability-based assessment and integration: functional-based capability analysis investigating and assessing current, planned, and future capabilities to understand capability advantage, gaps, and/or opportunities.
- Digital engineering: integrating digital engineering principles, digital tools and environments, and data across the capability life cycle to enable technical and non-technical users to design, develop, and deploy capability in a collaborative environment, with a single source of truth.
Hatton added, “Downer Professional Services delivers outcomes that put Australia’s interests first, and mission engineering will be pivotal to Defence realising the imperatives of the Defence Strategic Review.”
The mission engineering practice expands on and reinforces Downer’s broader commitment to uplifting workforce skills in Defence and defence industry, with the formation of a dedicated mission engineering and digital engineering training capability.
“Our goal is to meaningfully contribute to the design and delivery of a force that seamlessly aligns with Australia’s strategic priorities – supporting a resilient and mission-ready Defence Force. To do this effectively, we want everyone in industry to have access to the training required to support adoption of this transformative methodology,” Hatton explained.
Conway Kosi, managing director of Downer Professional Services, added, “The launch of our mission engineering practice and ensuing commitment to industry-wide training supports this and is a natural extension of the services Downer has proudly provided to Defence for over 80 years.”
This will see Downer offering targeted training programs to Defence and defence industry professionals, ensuring the Defence workforce is equipped to adopt mission engineering practices quickly and effectively.
Hatton is joined by an experienced team of defence industry specialists who are already delivering several critical mission engineering projects, including a Defence Pilot Program, to Downer’s customers.
