23 novembre 2017 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
Posted on November 23, 2017 by Chris Thatcher
When the federal government delivered its 2017 budget last spring, innovation was mentioned 262 times and served as the focal point for numerous new initiatives.
The centrepiece was the Innovation and Skills Plan, a series of proposals that included additional venture capital funding, new support for innovation in key growth areas and superclusters, and Innovation Canada, an initiative to bring siloed projects and funding programs for innovators under one roof.
More recently, the government in its 2017 defence policy introduced IDEaS (Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security), a program currently seeking Treasury Board approval that will invest $1.6 billion over the next 20 years to generate solutions to complex challenges across the Canadian Armed Forces. It will also speed up the development of new technologies through contests, sandbox trials, research networks and other programs.
The devil is always in the details of such initiatives, and all are in the early stages. Still, they have been widely welcomed by the aerospace sector.
However, innovation is not for the inexperienced, four seasoned small business executives cautioned during the annual Canadian Aerospace Summit on Nov. 7. While government programs often appear to be tailored to recent graduates with youthful enthusiasm, true innovation doesn't succeed without business acumen.
“It takes experience; it takes patience,” said Gabe Batstone, a self-described serial entrepreneur with over two decades in the tech sector, who recently launched Ottawa-based Contextere, an artificial intelligence firm focused on applications for blue collar workers that has secured funding from BMW, Lockheed Martin and Samsung.
Aerospace and defence programs can take years to mature and regulations invariably play a big part in the introduction of any new technology, he said. “To bring emergent technology into complex organizations, it's about procurement [expertise], about sales, about relationships, about [understanding] regulations. The technology is the least difficult part.”
In fact, tried and true business practices focused on customer relations are essential to entrepreneurial success.
“I was never worried about the technology,” said John Mannarino, president of Montreal-based Mannarino Systems and Software, a company that has grown from a one-man consultancy to over 60 employees specializing in engineering services and airborne software. Rather, innovation has come from listening to customers and suppliers, and that takes time. “I had to learn.”
In an address to the Summit, hosted by the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, Michael Anderson, president of Saab North America, observed that innovation does not happen without an element of risk. “The organization that has the best ability to effectively mitigate risk while providing an environment that promotes risk-taking will eventually be a successful innovator and, of course, a successful business.”
But there is a point at which small companies cannot take on more risk, said Dave Muir, president and CEO of Ottawa-based Gastops, a health monitoring firm that has developed sensor and analysis tools for complex aircraft and engines. “The larger companies are pushing risk way more down into the supply chain than they were. As a small fish there is only so far out from the shore you can swim before bad things happen.”
The pace of change is also creating challenges for small business, and it's not limited to technology. Development cycles, production schedules, and time to market have all been compressed in recent years.
For Patrick Thera, president of SED, a division of Calian that has been developing commercial satellite and ground systems solutions for over 50 years, that means being shrewd about where and with whom to invest.
“Key collaborations are very important,” he said, noting that “coopetition” has sometimes made for unexpected partners. “One day you're competing against a fellow company and the next you're partnering with that company.”
Gastops, too, has invested far more than previously in establishing collaborative networks to further its innovation. “I strongly believe, especially for a small company, that you cannot do innovation in the aerospace industry by yourself alone in the back room,” said Muir.
Adapting to the pace of change can be especially difficult if you don't have the necessary specialized skills in your company. All four executives acknowledged the challenge of finding top software and engineering talent when much larger companies in every sector are pursuing the same people. But they also argued that as products become more sophisticated, expertise in procurement, project management, intellectual property and marketing is critical to innovation and a company's growth.
When you are competing against cool start-ups with world-changing visions, “you have to go a long way to show people that you do offer a lot of things that they can take pride in, that you save lives every day with the technologies you create,” said Thera.
https://www.skiesmag.com/news/innovation-requires-experience-aiac-panel
17 décembre 2023 | Local, Sécurité
Something's gotta give. That's the message the Canadian military's top operations commander delivers now every time he meets with federal public safety officials and desperate provinces struggling to respond to domestic, climate-related disasters.
18 juin 2018 | Local, Aérospatial
David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen The Liberals had originally announced they would buy 18 used Australian jets to augment Canada's CF-18s. The extra aircraft will likely be stripped down for parts Canada has boosted the number of used Australian fighter jets it is purchasing to 25, but the deal still hinges on approval from the U.S. government. The Liberal government originally announced it would buy 18 used Australian F-18 jets to augment the Royal Canadian Air Force's CF-18s until new aircraft can be purchased in the coming years. It has added seven more aircraft to the deal, Dan Blouin, a spokesman for the Department of National Defence, confirmed Friday. Those extra aircraft will likely be stripped down for parts. It is not known yet if the seven aircraft will be flown to Canada or shipped, Blouin added. The exact cost of the aircraft, along with weapons and other equipment, is not yet known as negotiations are still underway, Procurement Minister Carla Qualtrough recently told journalists. The Liberal government has set aside up to $500 million for the project and that would cover the seven added jets. An Australian Senate hearing was recently told that Canada was presented with a cost proposal last year. “They accepted our offer in December, but they have also put in a further request for some seven aircraft for system testing, training and spares,” Australian Air Vice Marshal Cath Roberts told the hearing. The U.S. government is examining the deal and will have to give its approval before Australia can sell the F-18s to Canada, because the F-18s were built in the U.S. with American technology. Canada is hoping for the U.S. approval sometime in the summer. Although U.S.-Canada relations have hit a slump, with President Donald Trump vowing to punish Canadians over economic disputes, the DND does not expect that to affect approval of the fighter jet deal. Pat Finn, DND's assistant deputy minister of materiel, has said he expects a deal by the end of the year with deliveries of the Australian planes to begin in the summer of 2019. The government originally planned for the arrival of the first used aircraft next January. The government had originally planned to buy 18 new Super Hornet fighter jets from U.S. aerospace giant Boeing. But, last year, Boeing complained to the U.S. Commerce Department that Canadian subsidies for Quebec-based Bombardier allowed it to sell its C-series civilian passenger aircraft in the U.S. at cut-rate prices. As a result, the Trump administration brought in a tariff of almost 300 per cent against the Bombardier aircraft sold in the U.S. In retaliation, Canada cancelled the deal to buy the 18 Super Hornets. That project would have cost more than US$5 billion. In the meantime, the federal government expects to issue next year a request for proposals from aerospace firms who want to take part in the competition to provide Canada with 88 new fighter jets. That project, with a $19 billion price-tag, would see the purchase of a new fleet of planes that would replace both the CF-18s and the used Australian jets.A winning bidder is expected to be selected in spring 2021 and the first of the new aircraft would be delivered four years later. The last CF-18 will be retired in 2032. http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/canada-to-purchase-25-used-australian-fighter-jets-if-states-says-yes
8 octobre 2019 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
By DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN It's not much of a surprise that defence and security issues aren't a factor in this federal election. Despite the concerns of various commentators and analysts, the political parties can safely ignore those topics. Even though billions of dollars are to be spent on the future purchase of military equipment, and Canada is engaged in training missions in Ukraine, Latvia and Iraq, the average Canadian doesn't appear to care all that much about such topics. That doesn't mean that such a viewpoint is right. But it's typical of recent elections. The parties have touched briefly on defence and security in their platforms. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has noted he would improve relations with the U.S. and join the U.S. missile defence program. His government would buy new submarines and improve Arctic sovereignty. The Conservatives haven't discussed what it would cost to join the American missile defence system and there is no price tag for new submarines designed to operate in the Arctic. The subs, in particular, could be costly. In 2016 Australia announced its program to acquire 12 new subs with a price tag of $50 billion. Earlier this year Scheer vowed that a Conservative government would take the politics out of defence procurement, equipping the Canadian Forces with only what it needs. But even as he re-emphasized that point on the campaign trail, Scheer promised to order a second naval supply ship to be built at Davie shipyards in Quebec. While that would create jobs in the province and potentially generate support for the Conservatives, the leadership of the Royal Canadian Navy is adamant the second vessel is not needed. Liberal party defence promises have fewer details. Once again the Liberals have promised to increase support for the United Nations. But that's a repeat from the 2015 election campaign and many defence analysts point out that the Liberals didn't really deliver on that in their first mandate. There was the Canadian Forces mission to Mali, finished after only a year, and the assignment of a transport aircraft for UN use. But little else. The Liberals have a new promise to use the Canadian military's expertise for climate-related disasters, but again there are few details. They've also resurrected another of their 2015 election promises, which was to reform the defence procurement system. Little was done over the past several years to improve the system to purchase billions of dollars of military equipment. This time around the Liberals are promising to create a Defence Procurement Agency but it is unclear how that would be set up. The Green party has promised stable funding for military equipment and training, deployment of military personnel to deal with climate change disasters and pollution in the Arctic, to sign a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons and to cancel a deal with Saudi Arabia for light armoured vehicles. The NDP stated they would hold a fair competition for new fighter jets, keep shipbuilding procurement on time, stop the privatization of services at military bases and put more focus on peacekeeping. While defence and security issues are important, and can be costly to taxpayers, they don't seem to appear at the forefront of voter concerns. Most of the time they don't even register. Despite the thousands of words written and spoken by politicians and defence analysts about aging fighter jets, Canadians aren't marching in the streets to demand replacements for the RCAF's CF-18s. Scheer's promise to spend $1.5 billion to buy new medical imaging equipment for hospitals across Canada is more directly relevant to the average Canadian – who likely knows someone who has had to wait months for a MRI – than his promise to have Canada join the U.S. missile defence shield. The lack of interest by Canadians on defence matters has not been lost on politicians in power, particularly when they need to cut spending. By realizing that defence issues concerned only a small portion of the electorate, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper – who counted himself as a politician firmly behind the Canadian Forces – was able to chop the military's budget. At the heart of that issue is the lack of connection to and knowledge of the Canadian military by most Canadians. That was illustrated by a July 2018 report commissioned by the Department of National Defence which concluded that, “Awareness of and familiarity with the [Canadian Forces] was generally very low; virtually non-existent among those in the younger age group.” Only 26 per cent of those surveyed had some awareness of what the Canadian Forces had been doing over a year-and-a-half period. They couldn't even name what types of missions the military did at home, despite the high profile responses by the Canadian Forces to natural disasters such as floods and forest fires. Participants in the study were even surprised the learn the Canadian Forces operated in the Arctic. It's a situation that doesn't bode well for the future of the Canadian military. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/with-canadians-tuned-out-on-defence-political-parties-can-safely-ignore-the-topic-at-election-time