Sea 1656 Product SONIX Shipborne Sonobuoy Monitoring System is being advanced via Navy Minor Project proposal 1881, already being used by a major Surface Ship Project as trials support equipment and is the basis of Air Force Minor 886 (to replace recording capability in AP3C).

The odds of industry winning contracts for the delivery of products produced in partnership with Defence under the Capability Technology Demonstrator (CTD) Program just went up.

Defence is set to review the CTD process and has established a target to transition 50 per cent of CTDs through to acquisition by 2009 and 75 per cent by 2011 as part of the implementation of the Defence and Industry Policy Statement 2007.

Established a decade ago the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) run CTD Program aims to encourage industry and Defence to collaborate to investigate innovations and develop technology focused on enhancing military capability.

The program gives Defence’s capability developers the chance to evaluate the demonstrator technologies and the prospect of taking them forward into service, according to CTD Program Director Andrew Arnold.

He said the review will focus on building upon the program's success to date, in encouraging innovation and technology development, and enhance the prospects of CTD outcomes moving forward into the Defence acquisition process.

Since its inception, the CTD Program has invited more than 60 nominees to demonstrate how a technology they are developing might enhance priority Defence capability areas.

To date only four of these companies, out of a group of twenty that have completed the CTD Program, have used the CTD Program to launch their technologies into service with the Australian Defence Organisation (ADO). Another forty CTD projects are still underway.

Making the move from demonstrator to product acquisition has proven elusive. But, the industry policy statement, recently endorsed by Government, seeks to address this problem.

The one-star heading up the implementation of the new policy statement, Dominic Zaal said one of the initiatives detailed in the new policy concentrates on increasing the transition rate of CTDs into Australian Defence Force (ADF) operational service.

‘The focus needs to be on the war fighter and the use of CTDs to enhance ADF operational capability. To this end, an amount of $10 million per annum over five years has been allocated to improve CTD transition rates,’ Mr Zaal said.

‘The immediate focus will be on reviewing the 40 existing CTDs. We want to look at these 40 extant CTD projects and develop a strategy after seeing what it would take, in terms of time, money and effort, for what capability outcome, to get them up and running,’ he said.

The approach taken to ensure that future transitions from CTD outcomes to acquisition and delivery of ADF operational capability are smoother will be a joint one. Key internal stakeholders including DSTO, Capability Development Executive (CDE) and DMO will work together to examine the running of the program.

Mr Zaal said he believes the CTD Program has traditionally focused on the conduct of research and development linked to stated Defence priorities and this focus needs to be broader.

‘Having undertaken the CTD you would typically get to Technical Readiness Level (TRL) five or six, at which stage the CTD would then finish. We now need to take the next steps to get the CTD to TRL eight or nine where it can then be embedded into Defence capability. The new CTD funding will help to achieve this,’ he said.

‘What the new process says to Defence sponsors is: when you review these CTD nominations you have to have a clearly defined plan to say if this CTD works this is the project I am going to put it into and this is how I am going to get it there. You have to know how you are going to fund it into development and fund it into operations.

‘We want Defence groups nominating to be sponsors for CTDs to have a very clearly defined path to take that CTD to the project stage.

‘The CTD is about military capability and that has to be the focus of our research and development. The new policy statement is going to change the way we do business. CTDs need to be focused and targeted, offering value for money and meaningful outcomes for the Government,’ Mr Zaal said.

A new directorate has been established in DMO, the Directorate of Industry Innovation, to manage the new CTD initiatives and work to ensure CTDs present as viable candidates for acquisition and entry into operational service.

The Directorate of Industry Innovation will work in close consultation with CDE’s recently established Defence Capability Transition Cell (DCTC).

The DCTC facilitates the transition of prescribed capabilities and technologies into service with the ADF.

The output of the CTD program will be a principal capability and technology inject for both DMO and the DCTC Directorate to foster into service.

DMO’s Director of Industry Innovation will also work with DSTO to establish a program of joint Defence research ventures between DSTO, industry, universities and other public research bodies.