b'8 Partner News Winter 2020MODRoyal Navy Transforming Warship Support Through DigitisationBy Lieutenant Commander Oliver James, Royal NavyIn a world that is forever changing,Implementing a digital strategy with maritime power has never been in greaterindustry has been essential in tackling a demand. To meet this demand, the Royalvery complex and diverse data landscape Navy is being invested in, successfullybut it also maps out the journey to commissioning two aircraft carriers in 18meet the challenge of achieving a months and with the Type 26 & 31 Frigatesfully digitised Royal Navy by 2025. on order, along with additional Astute & Dreadnought class submarines; the Navy isWhilst forecasting replacement growing for the first time since the 1940s.of obsolescent systems present the opportunity to implement the Recognising that any large corporationstransformational digital change required, success is built on its ability to makedelivering real benefit now is also vital. timely and informed decisions, the Royal Navy is transforming by investing in digitalWarship Support Transformations strategy services that put data at the heart ofis to use small but scalable initiatives to the organisation. This will ensure it canoptimise, connect and expediate data continue to deliver available warshipsexchange and develop applications now and meet a greater demand forthat can intelligently exploit that data volume and output in the future, whilstand improve the lived experience for providing the best value for money throughthe maintainer at sea. Although these transparent dataled decision making. initiatives will deliver value in the short-term, more importantly they are driving Empowered with 1% of the Navys totalIts through these bodies that Warshipthe digital cultural change required and budget (6.5bn), the Digital & Data BoardSupport Transformation is implementing theputting in place the building blocks for (DDB), chaired by the Second Sea Lord,changes required to meet this challengea fully data driven support enterprise.mandates the Royal Navys approach to thebut also engaging with the commercial development and implementation of digitaland industrial sectors to capitalise on theThe Royal Navy is making 2021 the strategy and policy, ensuring alignment withexpertise and experience of exploitingYear of Experimentation (YX21) and defence-wide partners and is the authoritydata to improve business output.with HMS Prince of Wales as the centre of how digital investment funds are spent.piece, the opportunity to work with By maintaining complex systems inindustry and Project Nelson to trial new Project Nelson supports the DDB byharsh environments, providing logisticsapplications and exploit live platform driving the digital cultural change required,over long distances and requiringdata from ship to shore in real time will delivering programmes that will enableminimum downtime of their vesselsprovide a valuable insight into what more accessible data across the enterprise,to ensure maximum availability andcan be achieved for future support.aids intelligent application developmenttherefore value for money, commercial and is providing a hosting service that isshipping faces very similar support agnostic to the maritime environment.challenges to that of the Royal Navy.'