Notice

Defence Logistics Hackathon Information Sheet

Published 8 November 2018

1. General

The intent of this hackathon is to demonstrate the ability to analyse and share structured and unstructured multi-source data, maintaining its classification and permission-based access rules at machine speed. Data sets from the C130J Hercules platform will be provided to enable the development and testing of potential sharing solutions. The longer-term aim will be the development of predictive maintenance tools, and provision of evidence-based recommendations to optimise inventory checks and extend the life of components.

2. Background

Defence needs to share data across its enterprise, (with other nations, other government departments, across the services and with its supply base). There is a vast amount of data originating from many sources (system sensors and data buses, operational activities, engineering, logistic and supply chain transactions, financial and commercial systems of record), all with different data owners. The sharing of data in accordance with the full range of business rules, dependent on who you are, what organisation you work in and the role you fulfil, is complicated, time consuming and inefficient.

3. Aim of the hackathon

This hackathon aims to create automated capabilities that will identify, collate, cleanse and control the sharing of data in accordance with the business rules.
During the 48 hours at the London venue, teams will build a bespoke platform prototype of demonstrable algorithms that will assist the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) and its stakeholders to gain controlled access and share data at near machine speed.

4. Future state

Any user within the enterprise will be able to request information and dependent on individual permissions, role and organisation the request will be serviced from a common dataset, but the information presented to the user will only be based on their data access rights.

5. Benefits of attending

Attendees of the event will network and collaborate with likeminded experts in their field creating teams to tackle a Defence challenge that has potential commercial application across a range of business sectors.

This is your chance to:

• develop and test your digital product to boost its potential
• showcase your prototype to international defence and science professionals and technology experts
• seize the opportunity to take your solution to a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

The team outputs will be assessed, and prizes awarded to the winners, which may include (subject to confirmation):

• all attendees being presented with a hackathon T-shirt
• an opportunity to deliver an elevator pitch presentation of the winning solution at Oracle MBx 2019 in London
• tour of the Defence Academy Technology School, covering ammunition, armoured vehicles, artillery and simulation facilities
• goodie bag of water bottles, pens and t-shirts
• opportunity to bid for funding through the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) Open Call

We are looking for solutions that:

• deliver a working proof of principle to resolve Defence Logistics’ data sharing challenges
• will work with some or all MOD legacy systems
• meet Defence security requirements
• are evergreen and cyber resilient
• can be delivered as a service rather than a system
• enable interoperability through open architectures, standards and open data / document formats
• are cost effective
• can demonstrate significant benefit to defence
• can be easily accessed by multiple users through a common user interface
• could be developed into a working demonstrator at a later stage
• have potential to be scaled up in the future
• have potential for MOD accreditation (although we do not want to constrain innovation at this stage)

What we are not looking for:

• theoretical solutions
• consultancy
• paper-based studies or literature reviews
• PhD proposals
• projects that can’t demonstrate feasibility within the timescale of the event
• vendor dependency
• solutions that cannot work with existing Defence systems

6. Who should attend

This hackathon challenge is an opportunity for specialists in digital solutions to further develop their existing products to enable machine speed data sharing across international defence infrastructures. We anticipate teams collaborating and forming on the day but they could equally be ready formed from within a single organisation. Teams are to consist of between three and eight individuals. It is suggested that to be successful a team will need a range of skills. Each team will need a developer, a designer and at least one person to handle the business strategy and planning.

Other useful skills could include:

• data wranglers
• modellers
• programmers
• data scientists
• business and systems analysts

7. Exploitation

No contract will be awarded as a result of this event. If a solution of this nature is purchased in the future, standard commercial processes will be followed.

While this challenge is aimed at supporting the UK Defence Logistic strategic intent of enabling information sharing at machine speed, this initiative is part of a wider multinational programme looking to collaborate and exploit artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) between the UK, US and France. It is also coherent with the Change and Efficiency Board Defence Support Network Transformation programme. It is anticipated that the outputs will be further matured and exploited through the multinational Vice Chief of Defence Staff (VCDS) sponsored activities and through the Defence Support Network Transformation (DSNT) Information Integration challenge.

8. Development environment

• Oracle will provide an environment with access to circa 1500 tools
• data will be accessed through the cloud
• hardware will not be provided to the participants

Further information will be provided in a guidance document that will be issued to registered participants.

The environment is provided to encourage collaboration; however participants can bring their own tools if they wish. Prior to the event there will be a webinar by Oracle on how to use the environment and the tools available. Information required to Hack.

9. User challenges

A typical day in the life of a defence user could be: The operational duty holder has to decide on whether the remaining useful life of an aircraft subsystem can be extended so that the mission can be completed. The information required to support this decision and provide an audit trail is significant. Data is in multiple systems that can only be accessed by specific people. Information ascertains to the ‘as designed’, ‘as built’, ‘as maintained’ and ‘as used’ platform. Consideration must be given to how the platform has been operated, in what conditions and what impact this may have had on system integrity, and also to the future operating envelope and how this could impact on the system. Social, political and economic aspects must be considered as well as potential environmental and weather factors.

10. Range of users & roles

Across the relevant organisations (described below) there are many users who may input, access and use the data.

Typical users are:

• planners – planners exist at all levels of the organisation. They are focused on optimising the business enterprise. They need visibility of asset utilisation, future plans (activity, maintenance and resource), actual performance and utilisation (system, infrastructure, people, cost, service levels and key performance indicators). They will use this information to increase utilisation of key assets, manage fleets and allocate resources to task
• operators – the platform operator needs to know that the system has enough useful remailing life to complete its mission. This means the operator needs to know that the system is configured for the mission, is fully serviceable and has all of the required fuel, munitions and other commodities of supply in order to successfully complete the assigned task
• engineers – engineers need access to platform design data across the lifecycle. Their role is to ensure that systems are designed to operate in a cost efficient and safe manner to meet the user needs. They should make use of in-service platform performance information, production capabilities and material specifications to influence the design and modification of safe, effective, efficient, systems
• maintainers – maintainers inspect, diagnose and conduct repair actions to maintain equipment availability. To conduct this activity, they need access to platform health and performance data, engineering information systems and technical instructions. They need to have visibility of the required, spares, materiel and facilities required to assure availability of serviceable equipment in the hands of the user
• inventory managers – inventory managers are responsible for ensuring that spare parts and materiel are distributed across the supply network to meet the user and maintainer needs. Some material may be common across multiple platforms that could be operating in different countries with different operational priorities and demands
• safety managers
• commercial professionals
• financiers

11. Range of organisations

The typical users could be in different organisations and this will change the information and need and data access rights. Typically, military operations data may not be shared with industry while industry Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) must be protected without impacting on an engineer’s access to technical information required to complete their tasks. Example organisations include:

• military units
• military head quarters
• Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S)
• operating centres
• original equipment manufacturers
• prime contractors
• maintenance repair and overhaul providers
• tier suppliers
• third party logistic providers

Note: that these organisations can be duplicated for each nation state that is operating equipment.

12. Additional information

Following registration closure on Friday 16 November, registered participants will receive the following:

• hackathon guidance pack
• terms and conditions
• non-disclosure agreement (which must be signed prior to the event)