Aims to reduce 40% in project cycle time and 25% in operational costs

One significant step in cost-saving efforts is to structure all technical information to make it exchangeable or, even better, shareable and thus reusable for the vendor and customer alike.

An army project of immense value and importance

A project undertaken by the Norwegian army has the following ambitions: information sharing shall contribute to a 40% cut in project cycle time and 25% in in-service costs based upon the CALS principles and STEP/EXPRESS standards. An important factor in achieving this is to explore and adapt available technology through defined pilot projects. One such project is that between Hägglunds Vehicle, the Swedish manufacturer of combat vehicles, and its customer HFK (Hærens Forsyningskommando/The Norwegian Army Material Command). HFK is acquiring 104 new combat vehicles from Hägglunds, and in relation to this there will be a lot of information transferred between the two companies. In order to make this as smooth as possible, a short-term task is to exploit the benefits of using STEP and EXPRESS tools. Thus, the Hägglunds ­ HFK project will give valuable experience regarding information sharing between the Army and its suppliers. This is expected to have significant impact on both the Norwegian Army and the Nato community.

Exchanging technical information

Initiated by Hägglunds and based on Nato's own CALS program, the two parties will initially exchange STEP-compliant data concerning configuration management and technical information and documentation.

Senior consultant Henning Vold of the consulting company Cap Gemini is working on the Hägglunds project. He states that, "In a broad sense, the Norwegian Army will use this project to gain better knowledge of and experience with the cost-cutting possibilities of concurrent engineering and multidisciplinary groups supported by an integrated information environment. This platform will eventually lead to true information sharing between vendors, subcontractors and customers. This is much more effective on any level than a mere exchange of data."

Vold explains that he first learned about EPM Technology's EXPRESS tools through the Hägglunds project, and that HFK and Cap Gemini people have been trained by EPM Technology. Consequently, the Norwegian Army is taking a closer look at the EXPRESS Data Manager suite of products.

STEP makes the information exchange work

Morten Groven, project manager at HFK, says, "In general, HFK wishes to present 'one face' only towards the vendors, that is by adopting the STEP standard EXPRESS information modeling language. This will give us true technical information sharing and enable us to reuse data and information, save man-hours, increase the information quality, and, finally, it will also give us the possibility to glue existing applications together.

"At this stage, we will exchange Configuration Management (CM) data with Hägglunds in a STEP physical file format. This allows us to continuously support the data down to the individual vehicle which alone contains thousands of part numbers."

Groven continues, "The Hägglunds pilot project really is a revolutionary way of managing information, partly through the IETM (Interactive Electronic Technical Manual) based on STEP and SGML for dividing documents into tiny modules. For instance, previously when the Army had to change old combat vehicles' night vision binoculars we had to manually upgrade the information in 63 places. Using the new methodology based on STEP and SGML we only do it once, electronically via our data exchange system. The ISO 10303 STEP standard is ideal for exchanging technical data and we firmly believe that the standard will evolve to also support information sharing. Furthermore, STEP/EXPRESS is also an open solution which facilitates the integration of both old and new systems."

The only way to go

Says project manager Groven, "The Army must cut costs because the defense budget is more or less at status quo. If we want to invest in new material, the money must come through rationalization measures rather than increased budgets. To accomplish this one needs to integrate technology, change the work processes and enhance the workflow, and establish concurrent engineering and multidisciplinary teams supported by an integrated information environment."

Consequently, and with reference to Hägglunds' delivery of 104 combat vehicles to the Norwegian Army, there are major advantages to be gained through this STEP-based CALS project.