• Establishment of a Defence Accreditation and Certification System. It is fundamental for all defence organizations to establish a Defence Accreditation and Certification System in order to ensure conformity of the defence equipment with the defence standards provisions. This system safeguards the reliability, maintainability and life-cycle of defence materiel and guarantees that the systems meet the required interoperability criteria set while we are designing the related defence capability.

• Establishment of a mutual defence qualification acceptance system with Allies and partner nations. A mutual defence qualification acceptance system is considered essential especially between allies that are engaged in the form of consortium in the development of defence capabilities and the co-production or the follow-on support of defence equipment. This system recognizes and accepts the accreditation and certification systems established by the consortium parties, avoiding duplication of efforts and time/money consuming procedures on the certification of defence materiel standards during the production and/or acquisition and follow-on support of defence equipment.

• Establishment of a strong link between National SDOs, Academia, Industry and Defence and Security Stakeholders. Estimations on product cost savings following a more intensive use of civil standards by the military sector range from 10% up to 50%. On this basis the cooperation of all stakeholders on defence, security and civil standardization, including academia offering research and innovation is fundamental to optimize the use of resources, maximize operational effectiveness and upgrade qualitative services and products in both civil and defence arena.

• Establishment of Higher Education and Training on Defence Planning, Acquisition and Standardization. Quality is not an act, it is a habit. Building a robust mind-set on defence planning, acquisition and standardization best practices, is fundamental for developing interoperable capabilities. The human dimension of interoperability is considered even more critical than the technical and procedural ones towards successful capabilities development. To this end it is necessary for all defence organizations around the world to establish higher education on Defence Planning, Acquisition and Standardization.

• Application of best practice standards in defence procurement and throughout the life-cycle of the defence equipment. The application of the best practice defence and civil standards in the defence procurement guarantying the reliability and maintainability of the defence equipment, stretching the life-cycle of the equipment to the maximum possible extent reducing in parallel its cost and facilitating interoperability with future defence acquisition programs.

• Application of best practice standardization management policies, strategies, structures, processes and tools. Defence Standardization bodies have a critical role in qualifying interoperable capabilities. On this it is essential for a defence standardization organization to establish a defence standardization policy (what), a related strategy (how) an integrated structure (one stop service) for overseeing and harmonizing standardization activities, a dynamic process for developing, maintaining and managing defence standards integrated within the defence planning process and the necessary tools (databases, collaborative platforms, tracking tools) for the management of standardization projects and facilitating the capabilities related interoperability profiles.

Defence Capability Pillars

In other words the key challenge for the military forces is to “born interoperable”. The answer in this this is to build-up capabilities with the formulation of interoperability requirements and the implementation of best practice standardization solutions in the following capability pillars:

• Doctrine: the way military forces operate, in terms of the capability.
• Organization: How military forces are organized to operate in terms of the capability e.g divisions, air wings, Marine-Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs), etc.
• Training: How military forces are prepared to engage tactically in terms of the capability; basic training to advanced individual training, various types of unit training, to performance of military exercises and operations according to established standards (eg doctrines, TTP, etc.)
• Materiel: Defence equipment necessary for the capability, such as weapon systems, C3 architecture, sensors, spares, ammunition etc., in order to carry out specific military operations effectively.
• Leadership: How professional education and competence management is conducted to ensure qualified managers (in certain capabilities seen in light of military exercises and operations).
• Personnel: How to ensure that qualified and motivated personnel are available in certain capabilities through training and exercise, and in military exercises and operations.
• Facilities: The facilities and infrastructure necessary to safeguard certain capabilities.

Once developing a capability we advising you to define interoperability requirements and standardize (standardization solutions offered by defence or civil standards) each of the above mentioned capability pillars to read as D(S)-O(S)-T(S)–L(S)-M(S)-P(S)-F(S).

In the section of the implementation of defence standards we are presenting further details on the application of defence standards in the DOTLMPF system.