Australian Soldier Systems Architecture (ASSA) for Land 125 Phase 4, Soldier Modernisation
The Commonwealth Project Office for Land 125 Phase 4 was tasked with updating the existing Soldier Systems equipment, but in order to achieve standardisation, needed to develop an architecture for the equipment, that would enable the integration of equipment onto a standardised platform, being the soldier.
Land 125 Ph 4 went out to market under RFQTS 15452 for Systems Engineers, Architects and Technical Writers to develop the architecture.
Systematiq partnered with Frazer-Nash to provide a team to develop the architecture. Under the direction of Frazer-Nash’s identified level 4 consultant, Systematiq provided Brydon Johnson and Peter Stuart as discipline specialists for Systems Engineering and Technical Writing, with support from Nicole Snyder as an experienced practitioner to support the development of the end document.
An initial workshop was conducted to outline the Commonwealth’s requirements for the ASSA and the intent for the deliverables identified under the contract. The Frazer-Nash architect conducted some early architecture work and analysis on the existing Soldier Combat System to identify known interfaces for power, data, physical and human factors.
Using a Systems Engineering approach, this analysis was then provided to Brydon and Nicole who developed the document, which would outline the ASSA for the Commonwealth. Krissie Zibell was brought into the team at a later stage to assist with the development of diagrams that would be used in the document and also as a part of visualising the proposed architecture to the Land 125 Ph 4 project office.
One challenge that the Systematiq team had to overcome was how to incorporate different requirements and views into a document that would provide the Commonwealth with a strategy for how to acquire equipment for the Soldier Combat System, as well as provide a vision for how future Soldier equipment would need to operate as a system.
The project delivered an initial draft of the ASSA which was reviewed and then workshopped by the Commonwealth in order to obtain stakeholder input.
During the workshop, it was recommended to split the ASSA into different artefacts, which covered the guidance for a Soldier Systems Architecture, the Architecture itself and finally a Defence standard which would be adopted by Land 125 Ph 4 for the acquisition of equipment solutions.
The Defence standard for the ASSA has been delivered by the team for review.