Engineering Conundrum II-Structural Legacies

Engineering  Conundrum

II-Structural Legacies

“Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions.”
                         - "The Fifth Discipline” by Peter Senge

In 1971, the Air Force had gone through restructuring of technical functions and regrouped technical officers into two streams instead of four. Tech/Eng, Tech/Armt, Tech/Elect and Tech/Sigs were regrouped into two streams of Mechanical and Electronics engineers. The branches were named AE (M) and AE (L) for Aeronautical Engineers Mechanical and Electronics respectively.

There were several positives of the change. Air Force benefited from the integration of all maintenance effort at flying as well as non-flying bases. Engineer officers at senior levels could now move effectively across sub-streams of specialisation providing for flexibility in personnel management. However, when a majority of pre ’71 commissioned officers came up for retirement in the 90s, some adverse effects began to show. The number of Armament and Signals specialists dwindled significantly by the turn of the century.

In 2015, a seminar was conducted by 9 BRD to commemorate 1965 war efforts. One session was devoted to the role of Maintenance Command during the war and the evolution of Maintenance Philosophy thereafter. In the chair, was the illustrious Air Mshl SS Ramdas, who had seen it all. During Q&A, a veteran asked him “Don’t you think we need to revert to the pre 1971 status of four specialist Tech branches?”

Air Mshl Ramdas, thoughtful as always, acknowledged the predicament while confessing that most veterans present, including him, had retired from the Air Force too long ago to really place a finger on the pain points. He did, however, have a mantra. “Let’s look ahead - going back is not an answer” he said. The emerging discussions affirmed that, however startling they might seem today, yesterday’s solutions were justifiable for the problems and determining causes then perceived.

I wonder if we can think like the pioneers making a new Air Force, unburdened by structural legacies present in the system. Only then grounded in a vision for tomorrow can we hope to find unbiased answers to move from the current reality to desired state. It is, however important to understand legacies that usually tie us down.

Unwieldy Engineering Structures

Nowhere in the world does an engineer’s canvas cover as much as that of an IAF engineer.

Every engineer has to go through the experience of the 1^st/2^nd line field maintenance. Beyond 1^st/2^nd line, the depot maintenance and developmental projects are the areas where the essential traits of attention to details and depth of engineering knowledge are tested. A significant number of engineers get involved in this type of work in their career. Both, Mechanical and Electronics stream officers merge at senior management levels at the Air Cmde rank.

Engineers work towards maintenance/ logistics/ training of an extremely wide variety of technology - purely mechanical to hi-tech electronics and software. They participate in acquisition programmes, developmental projects. They operate and maintain Guided Weapons, Networked, EW and IT systems. The widespread areas of deployment for engineering branch officers include:-

·         Aircraft (Fighters, transport, helicopters).

·         UAVs (Remotely Piloted Vehicles).

·         Guided Weapons.

·         Weapons/armament.                              

·         Airfield and Navigational aids.

·         Radars                                           

·         Communication systems.                     

·         Communication Networks.

·         Software/ IT Applications.

·         Electronic Warfare

·         Space Applications.

·         Cyber Security.

Even as a few brilliant and hardworking officers undertake these varied assignments with aplomb, the engineering leadership in general suffers.

The options card runs into pages from which the personnel staff can pick up an AE officer for posting. The more proficient an officer is, the greater the challenges and variety of assignments come his way. The canvas becomes so big that however sincerely the personnel staff may try we get situations where apex level engineers get into uncomfortable situations. It is now common to find AOM or DG (Aircraft) who have never been with aircraft maintenance and DG (Systems) without any electronic systems background. The leadership suffers in both domains although compared to the aircraft maintenance we often underrate the challenges of managing ‘systems’.

‘Communications & IT’, known as ICT in civil parlance is a massive field, which requires a separate cadre of its own, independent of the existing Maintenance (AE) structures. That would enable Maintenance and operationally flavoured ICT to be more effective as professionally independent cadres. The Maintenance stream officers would look after the whole range of maintenance for aircraft, but only the depot maintenance for ICT systems. The ICT stream officers, while looking after only field maintenance, would also work towards all ICT acquisitions, developmental projects and operations. As AOC-in-C MC, I had proposed this change in phases, first only to stream out and eventually to consider an independent branch of ICT engineers. My proposal was handed over to a team led by one AVM for study and recommendations – and forgotten in due course.

Disparate Logistics

“Structure Influences Behaviour"
                         - “The Fifth Discipline” by Peter Senge

On Day One, the Indian Air Force started with five pilots and one Eqpt officer. More non-technical Eqpt officers followed, who managed stores. The Eqpt cadre had begun a decade before Harjinder Singh got commissioned as the first engineer. The mechanics’ job was simply known as ‘squadron maintenance’. Therefore, on commissioning, the role of Tech officers would come to be known as ‘maintenance’. Meanwhile, Eqpt officers reached senior levels while engineers dirtied overalls under the aircraft, in bomb dumps and workshops. The Maintenance org structure had loosely taken shape where Eqpt officers and Tech officers participated as separate entities. It is not difficult to imagine why the new command in 1955 was named ‘Maintenance Command’ when the Air Force decided to integrate all Maintenance and Supply Chain units. Bizarre, but true - after Harjinder Singh, Fliers and even Eqpt officers headed maintenance organisations for a long time without ever wielding a spanner.

In due course global trends recognised the scope of military logistics to include design, development, acquisition, maintenance, modification, upgrade, storage, distribution and disposal. Militaries all over the world began using terms like ‘Material’ and ‘Logistics’ for what we called ‘Maintenance’. But, meanwhile the name of the Eqpt branch was changed to Lgs (for Logistics) while continuing to perform the same support function of stores management and assistance in provisioning and procurement. As a result we remained permanently locked with the term ‘Maintenance’ as all-encompassing function with logistics as its support function – a terminology misaligned with the usage in the rest of the world. 

One may say “So be it. We are unique. Let us continue with our semantics” - Little do we realise that continuing with the ‘Maintenance’ semantic leads to many twists.

·   Material management within the Air Force is inappropriately considered as Lgs officers’ domain.

·  Since we don’t conform to the universally followed terminology, we are inappropriately understood and represented in international exchange programmes.

·   Inter services Defence Logistics issues of the Air Force are misunderstood as independent concerns of Lgs branch.

·    Rising rank structures of the Lgs branch create command/control/coordination issues - the purchase/ stores manager wearing a logistician’s hat wishes to turn away from his support character in search of an independent role.

·       The divide constrains brilliant Lgs officers from performing a larger role.

We have regularly experimented with field maintenance org structure. The IO (reporting officer) for the SLO has been changed frequently to and fro between the Station Commander and CEO. The reason for not going by the fundamental principle of management - responsibility with authority - remains a mystery.

Renaming the functions and a review of ranks/ reporting structures or merger of the two branches are possible solutions.

A few former AOC-in-Cs MC and AOMs have unsuccessfully suggested merging of the two branches. I would wish to call the merged single branch as Air Lgs with the two streams as Air Lgs (M) and Air Lgs (L). A win-win for all concerned officers including career prospects commensurate with the present status can certainly be ensured during the period of transition.

Can engineers be trusted with vision?

Ineffective ICT Management

Info and Communication Technology is the Max Leverage Area

If Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, college dropouts could rule the software world, why do we need Computer Science/ Engineering graduates for managing software systems in IAF? This delusion has resulted in Software/ IT/ Info Systems/ ICT management never getting institutionalised.

Communication/ Comp Sc/ IT engineers largely make the workforce. However, there are two issues of concern.

-   First: There is a compulsive divide between airborne and ground systems management. Whereas technically qualified engineers manage ground systems design/ development, pilots with little software/ Communication systems acumen head airborne C₄ISR systems development and management.

-    Second:  ICT systems are managed part time. The workforce rotates back to their primary branch role and the senior managers (of avionics software, command & control systems, IT and Communication networks) usually get just one such tenure before again getting isolated from the world of ICT.

The result is that ICT finds itself in no-man’s land with the management responsibility described best by the story about Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and

Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.

Everybody thought that Anybody could do it,

But Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody

When Nobody did what Anybody could have done

The leadership is unable to appreciate the ICT management need for defining data formats, interface protocols and process to process communication standards. Significant efforts with the necessary acumen are required either to define our own or to adopt international standards to ensure seamless info grid covering the whole spectrum of operations through ground, air and space. However, with distributed responsibility within isolated pockets we fall short of envisioning the big picture and consequent achievement of a reasonable degree of Network Centric Operations capability.

Finally, Cyber Security and Space Applications need knowledgeable leadership besides highly specialised work force. The technology vision comes from the related acumen, which needs practice. Technology management will continue to suffer if controlled by those occupied predominantly in accumulating combat flying hrs.

Other Legacies

The operations men started the Air Force as General Duty officers with a view to also look after the administration requirements. However, over the years we have created longer support structures, which we find difficult to manage especially as we aim to provide high career prospects for everyone. Some branches have lost their relevance in the current circumstances. The legacy structures have to be reviewed if we wish to improve and move ahead.

                                                                                        …….To be continued