Long-term collaborative and trusted relationships
To modernise collective training, QinetiQ, KBR and PA Consulting have come together to form Team PALADIN. Each Team PALADIN partner has delivered long-term successful partnering arrangements with the UK MOD and the wider defence industry.
Our combined experience is based on working with our customers in close partnership to maintain the relevance of our solutions, ensuring optimal, responsive performance against changing requirements, timescales and budgets. This approach has allowed us to maintain our trusted, collaborative relationships over decades with a broad range of defence customers including the UK MOD, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the British Army and the US Army.
By adopting an integrated, strategic approach to service delivery, we ensure efficiency gains and operational benefits are ingrained in our solutions from inception through to implementation. These are achieved by incorporating the expertise of our partner network of subject matter experts and specialist providers from the broader industry.
Our long-term relationships have delivered a broad range of operational outcomes to meet challenging and evolving requirements. These include operational support, engineering delivery and technology development in support of mission deployments, new capability introduction and future planning. We have highlighted some of these examples in the following case studies.
QinetiQ – Engineering Delivery Partnership
The Engineering Delivery Partner (EDP) programme, established in 2018, provides a strategic, enterprise-wide approach to the provision of engineering capability to meet the current and projected demands of the UK MOD. EDP is delivered through the Aurora Engineering Partnership – a unique partnership between QinetiQ, AtkinsRéalis and BMT – in collaboration with the MOD’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S). This Partnership brings together proven defence sector experience and draws on a broad technological, engineering and safety expertise from a network of more than 230 providers.
Driving both efficiency gains and operational benefits through innovation and collaboration, EDP is helping to reduce the cost of engineering services while enabling delivery of the best equipment and support for UK armed forces. EDP delivers efficiencies through two main drivers: by moving away from resourced-based contracts to output-based contracting and through the adoption of effective digital tools, methods and processes.
EDP has secured £1.5bn of orders, and has successfully delivered over 21,000 engineering outputs. A recent example of EDP innovation is Futures Lab, a new service dedicated to exploiting the knowledge and experience of industry and academia in support of DE&S Future Capability Group’s mission to improve delivery of military capability through innovation, exploitation of technology and provision of impartial advice.
KBR – Facilities Management Service (Operations) Contract
In addition to our support across the Iraq and Afghanistan Operations, and the Operational Support Services Contract, (from 2012 to 2022), KBR has partnered with the UK MOD to leverage our trusted relationships with industry to deliver a range of outcomes to the British military worldwide through the Facilities Management Service (Operations) contract (FMS(O)). The current FMS(O) contract encompasses a broad range of requirements, including infrastructure support, support services, people services and equipment provision.
Working closely with the MOD, KBR plan and deliver these varied task orders to deliver operational benefits while ensuring value for money, often meeting challenging timescales in austere environments. KBR’s delivery of infrastructure improvements to MOD overseas bases, including training camps, is a key example of leveraging trusted, collaborative partnerships with local and international industry partners.
KBR, co-located with the deployed MOD teams, manages subcontractor teams to oversee construction and operation of new training, domestic and workshop facilities. The various projects under FMS(O) continue to demonstrate our commitment to delivering in challenging conditions and against changing, unforeseen requirements. In one such project, construction of new and improved training facilities was managed and completed despite widespread on-site flooding and the COVID-19 pandemic. As an active MOD overseas training site, it was crucial that exercises and operational support continued throughout the construction. KBR and the subcontractor team ensured the MOD suffered no loss of operational capability – a vital component of KBR’s FMS(O).
PA Consulting – Project CRENIC
The UK MOD’s project CRENIC is the future Force Protection Electronic Countermeasure programme that will provide the next generation of innovative solutions to keep servicemen and women safe from the threats posed by radio controlled improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The project started in 2022 and will run to at least 2027. The first stage of the project will deliver replacement vehicle and soldier-carried systems to active operations, with first deliveries of the new equipment due to take place in 2026.
As the systems integrator for the project, PA Consulting leads a collaborative consortium, combining the expertise of Leonardo, Leidos Innovations UK and Marshall Land Systems to form ‘Team Protect’.
The programme marks a major step in transforming the delivery of military capability and delivering on the 2021 Defence and Security Industrial Strategy. It is transformational in the use of open standards and a collaborative approach to engaging industry. By using the Land CEMA (Cyber and Electromagnetic Activities) architecture, a common set of open technology standards will allow the armed forces to modify and iteratively improve the solutions in the future through a diverse ecosystem of suppliers delivering their innovations into the programme.