Recent VIP visits to the CDF

As part of her recent visit to ESTEC, Professor Anne Glover, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission spent some time in the CDF learning about the benefits of Concurrent Engineering. Professor Glover was quick to see the advantages of CE in a wider context and asked about its potential use in other fields and sectors. The principles of good and clear communication across all levels and to a technically diverse audience, embodied in the CDF philosophy and the ability to reach decisions based on collaboration and knowledge tied in very well with the message Professor Glover had given during her speech in the Erasmus Building.

Massimo Bandecchi (Head of CDF) was able to not only show her how ESA has managed to distribute the model based system engineering approach used in the CDF to many agencies, industries and academia throughout Europe, but also gave her examples of where the approach has been used by others for non-space applications.

On the 19th of June the new president of JAXA, Dr Naoki Okumura, visited the CDF as part of his visit to ESTEC. Of course JAXA have a keen interest in concurrent engineering and have participated in, and provided papers for the last 3 SECESA System Engineering workshops organised by the CDF.

The new Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency Ms Arnould visited the CDF to gain an understanding of how the two agencies have worked together on the ISR capabilities package assessment study, where the CDF has developed a range of tools to assist in a System of Systems approach to complex scenarios. As part of this process the CDF has developed a Balance of Investments Analysis Model that allows optimisation and trading of risks and costs versus capabilities and benefits by allowing factors to be weighted differently, thus significantly altering the outcome of the trade-off.

Ms Arnoud was very interested in the development of the tools and asked about future cooperation between the two agencies. Space is embedded in several EDA initiatives. “EDA’s Member States are expressing support for exploring future capability packages in governmental satcoms, which I believe would greatly benefit from a civil-military approach with ESA and Member States alike, building on the strong experience of ESA. ESA and EDA will be looking at the best way to synchronize to make sure we reap the most benefits from civ-mil synergies for our respective activities and mandates, for example the Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems programme”, said Ms. Arnould.