The Politics and DV Engineering working group analyses current political developments in the defence sector. It provides independent facts and interpretation from the technological knowledge and experience of engineers.
The Politics and DV Engineering working group has questions and comments on the Defence HR Action Plan sent by the Secretary of State for Defence to the House of Representatives on 28 May 2021 .The comments have been prepared based on publicly available information and defence technology knowledge and experience.
Download a PDF of this commentary here.
Usually, KIVI does not formulate questions on personnel aspects of Defence. However, this plan contains some aspects that may have a relationship with technology and equipment. Scaling up and down in peels of Defence personnel is, in our view, not only about people, but also about (associated) resources.
Page 3. Peels with human capacity
The first and second peels talk about scaling up and down of operational and non-operational military and civilian personnel. When these peels are scaled down, it is not specified where the people then available will be deployed. However, it seems conceivable to our working group that personnel with operational and/or technical experience could be temporarily deployed to a company or knowledge institute in such cases. This could be very useful when developing new technologies or new equipment, for instance.
The third and fourth shell with on-call personnel and cooperation with companies and self-employed people, respectively, is based on hiring personnel capacity and fits well into the concept of the adaptive armed forces.
In many cases, however, it may be wise to hire not just personnel, but personnel who bring resources with them. For example, additional divers from off-shore, using their own equipment, or drivers with a vehicle. Conversely, personnel temporarily not needed with their resources could be deployed elsewhere in the society. The advanced but little-used driving simulators for large vehicles in difficult terrain at OTCRij are a simple example of this.
In advance, agreements could then be made with those companies so that the equipment in question meets the technical requirements necessary for (operational) deployment with Defence or civil society, respectively. In such a situation, Defence would no longer need to acquire and manage or store some assets itself.
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The Hague, 15 June 2021
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Disclaimer: The facts and opinions given are based on open sources and on the knowledge and experience of working group members.
As part of the professional association KIVI, the working group is independent of political parties, governments and companies.
This is not an official position of KIVI. The association accepts no liability for anything put forward by the working group or its members.
Photo: Matthias Wewering via Pixabay
