ROYAL AIR FORCE
“ We recognise the fact that we are a very bureaucratic organisation – most government departments are ,” says Crawford . “ But we also recognise the fact that in order to interact with the smaller companies and startups , we need to change some of those organisational structures and processes to make it much easier for them to interact and to collaborate with Defence
“ We ' ve been working quite hard to look at our organisational structures to create opportunities for the smaller companies to engage with us . A few years ago we set up the rapid capabilities office and the whole purpose of that organisation is to rapidly take technologies that are out there and accelerate them through the procurement process so we can incorporate them a lot quicker into the organisation .”
So what might a Next Generation Air Force look like ? Crawford says it will be informed by data , connected , and collaborative . It will have human-machine teaming , using artificial intelligence and machine learning to best deliver information to inform decision-makers .
And finally , how important is digital transformation for the RAF – an organisation with more than 103 years of innovation ? Brockie says information is a key enabler but is not the “ be-all and end-all ”.
“ RAFX IS DELIVERING EXPERIMENTATION , SO WE FACILITATE THEIR ABILITY TO EXPLOIT TECHNOLOGY . WE SUPPORT THEM WITH THE TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP ”
BLYTHE CRAWFORD OBE GROUP CAPTAIN , ROYAL AIR FORCE
172 January 2022