German defense officials craft a digital über-model for the Bundeswehr

COLOGNE, Germany — The German defense ministry has kicked off a lengthy process of remodeling its digital operations and business processes with the aim of making the armed forces, or Bundeswehr, more combat-ready while streamlining back-office operations.

Under the banner of Enterprise Architecture Management, or EAM, and armed with a freshly awarded contract to the ministry’s own information technology company BWI — one that will ultimately grow into €180 million ($187 million) over 10 years — officials are fanning out across the agency to catalogue how data travels through the vast bureaucracy.

The idea is to look under the hood of all moving parts, documenting processes that range from guiding missiles on their targets to assigning military hospital beds to injured soldiers.

The insights are meant to generate a blueprint for a new way of doing business, streamlined flows of standardized data and all. In essence, it’s an attempt at cutting through the fog of war — literally and bureaucratically — and unearthing hidden interdependencies that will ideally ignite proverbial light bulbs on doing things more efficiently.

“We’ve always had architectures in IT, but they were isolated,” said Col. Ralf Blasajewsky, who is charged with laying the EAM governance groundwork on the Bundeswehr’s planning staff until the program gets its own subdivision office in April.

The idea of connecting the dots of previously disparate processes stems in part from a report by government auditors that lamented the lack of data interconnectedness, Blasajewsky said in an interview.

In response to the charge, he added, defense officials decided to start “something big” — a comprehensive digital model for the entirety of the military apparatus, neatly sorted into functional compartments.

While the work is meant to yield new insights into the operations of the defense ministry, there is also the objective of facilitating joint operations with Germany’s other security agencies as well as with allies.

When it comes to the vision of Germany as a central European logistics hub for NATO forces in the event of a major war, for example, officials believe an über-model of government models could do wonders in gauging the requirement for, say, grub for transiting troops.

“If there were 150,000 American soldiers to march through Germany, there has got to be a baker who delivers the Brötchen,” said Blasajewsky, referring to the mini breads popular for breakfast here.

The spirit of the EAM approach is more advanced in some communities than others. In joint fires, for example, practitioners have always had to deal with data flowing across the various elements of what officials call the “kill chain” — everything from sensors finding a target to warheads striking it.

Building out the modeling approach even further for artillerists could help leaders understand existing capability gaps — a cannon with a particular range, for example — and derive acquisition strategies, Blasajewsky said.

The integration of drones into combat formations would also benefit from an EAM examination, he argued.

As defense officials get started with their modeling work, they are finding that specialists are hard to come by on the labor market. That is because the EAM discipline is also en vogue in the private sector, under the industry modernization mantra known here as “Industrie 4.0,” according to Blasajewsky.

He said the success of the project will depend to a great degree on how the tenets are socialized in the department, ideally with support growing from the lower echelons of the service branches.

“If we dictate it from above, it won’t work.”

Sebastian Sprenger is associate editor for Europe at Defense News, reporting on the state of the defense market in the region, and on U.S.-Europe cooperation and multi-national investments in defense and global security. Previously he served as managing editor for Defense News. He is based in Cologne, Germany.

德国科隆——德国国防部启动了一项漫长的数字化运营和业务流程改造计划，旨在提高德国联邦国防军的作战能力，同时简化后台运营。

在企业架构管理 (EAM) 的旗帜下，并凭借一份新近授予该部信息技术公司 BWI 的合同（该合同最终将在 10 年内增长至 1.8 亿欧元（1.87 亿美元）），官员们正在该机构内四处奔走，记录数据如何在庞大的官僚机构中流动。

其理念是深入了解所有运转部件，记录从引导导弹击中目标到为受伤士兵分配军医院床位等一系列流程。

这些洞见旨在为一种全新的商业模式绘制蓝图，简化标准化数据的流转等等。本质上，这是一次拨开迷雾——无论是字面意义上的迷雾还是官僚主义层面的迷雾——的尝试，旨在挖掘隐藏的相互依存关系，从而启发人们更高效地开展工作。

“我们在 IT 领域一直都有架构，但它们是孤立的，”拉尔夫·布拉萨耶夫斯基上校说道。他负责为联邦国防军的规划人员奠定 EAM 治理基础，直到该计划在 4 月份获得自己的分支机构。

布拉萨耶夫斯基在接受采访时表示，将以前分散的流程联系起来的想法部分源于政府审计人员的一份报告，该报告对缺乏数据互联性表示遗憾。

他补充说，为了回应这一指控，国防官员决定启动一项“大工程”——建立一个涵盖整个军事系统的综合数字模型，并将其清晰地划分为各个功能模块。

这项工作旨在深入了解国防部的运作，同时也是为了促进与德国其他安全机构以及盟友的联合行动。

例如，在设想德国作为北约部队在重大战争中欧洲中部后勤枢纽时，官员们认为，一个超级政府模式可以很好地衡量过境部队的伙食需求。

“如果有 15 万美国士兵要进军德国，那肯定会有面包师送来小面包，”布拉萨耶夫斯基说道，他指的是这里很受欢迎的早餐小面包。

在某些领域，EAM（环境评估管理）方法的理念比其他领域更为成熟。例如，在联合火力作战中，实战人员始终需要处理贯穿整个“杀伤链”（官方称之为“杀伤链”）各个环节的数据流——从传感器发现目标到弹头击中目标，涵盖了所有环节。

布拉萨耶夫斯基表示，进一步完善炮兵建模方法可以帮助领导者了解现有的能力差距——例如，具有特定射程的大炮——并制定采购策略。

他认为，对EAM进行审查，对无人机融入作战编队也有益处。

据布拉萨耶夫斯基称，国防官员在着手建模工作时发现，劳动力市场上很难找到专业人才。这是因为，在被称为“工业4.0”的工业现代化理念的推动下，企业资产管理（EAM）学科在私营部门也十分流行。

他表示，该项目的成功在很大程度上取决于这些原则在部门内的传播情况，理想情况下，这些原则应该得到各军种基层人员的支持。

“如果我们自上而下地发号施令，那肯定行不通。”

塞巴斯蒂安·斯普伦格是《防务新闻》欧洲版副主编，负责报道该地区的防务市场状况，以及美欧在防务和全球安全领域的合作和多国投资。此前，他曾担任《防务新闻》执行主编。他现居德国科隆。