DNO Consultancy
Client
Government / Ministry of Defence
Expertise
Duration
Part of The Ministry of Defence (MOD), the Defence Nuclear Organisation (DNO) was established to focus resources and efforts around the UK’s defence nuclear business. As a new organisation, the DNO were looking to reevaluate and build upon their end-to-end acquisition process to evolve best practice methods for requirements and performance management.
The creation of the DNO as a separate organisation provided an opportunity to refocus attention and improve existing systems within the end-to-end acquisition process. Due to the size of the project and the requirement for expertise, not only within the defence industry but engineering delivery too, the DNO sought external support.
SVGC have competed for the activity and have consistently demonstrated value for money for the past four years. The approach included a strategic method that would deliver improved definition and evaluation of requirements, increase control in the design and definition of key products, strengthen traceability and enable assurance of business cases and provenance to the level of rigour demanded for public scrutiny.
The Challenge
The DNO’s existing systems were robust. But as technology progressed, so did the need for more up to date processes that utilised digital developments in order to enhance the proficiency of DNO’s requirements engineering.
Our task was to develop working systems and technologies that would enable everyone to be aware of and interact with the requirements. In doing so, this would enhance the control and consistency in the design and definition of key products.
The process required re-examination of all key components of the acquisition process to ensure the optimum benefit from a solution. This meant not only was there a need to improve the definition of requirements and target benefits, but also involved the other end of the ‘Engineering V’ – gathering performance information for evaluation against the requirements. A complete end to end performance analysis was required.
Why SVGC?
SVGC was originally founded 23 years ago to provide support to the Ministry of Defence and associated industry. Our services are now increasingly in demand from other government departments, commercial organisations and the nuclear sector.
The DNO selected SVGC due to our recognised requirements engineering expertise, our value for money and our experience of delivering many best practice examples to the MOD and wider public sector over many years.
Our blended team of business, military and security experts provided high-quality, rapid and cost-effective solutions. Partnered with our technology engineering experience, we were perfectly placed to help the DNO progress.
The success of this project also led to The Nuclear Research Advisory Council recommending that a digital approach should be adopted to ensure coherent ongoing requirements management.
The Method
We developed and delivered the ‘Golden Thread’ of requirements, linking the whole process from policy and provenance all the way through to the evaluation of the engineered item to ensure compliance with policy.
Throughout the process SVGC prompted the all-important questions – “why?” and “what outcome?” in order to elicit the actual requirement. Later in performance analysis, “does it do what we need it to do?” and “have we built it right”? Ensuring a high level of attention to detail, traceability and ability to operate to the required levels to satisfactory public scrutiny.
Overall end to end requirements and analysis performance reporting was delivered directly to the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) during the project, demonstrating how SVGC supported DNO through detailed requirements engineering and determination of product and programme performance.
The Result
By working with SVGC, the DNO have been able to demonstrate the through time performance of the requirements, improved controls of design definition and engaged a much wider population in the requirements definition and management activities – a change which has been embraced by the team.
The success of this project also led to The Nuclear Research Advisory Council recommending that a digital approach should be adopted to ensure coherent ongoing requirements management. SVGC have since developed a secure suite of digital applications delivering all aspects of Capability Management from requirements engineering through project management to delivery and sustainment.