To that finish, yearly the Naval Postgraduate Faculty (NPS) brings collectively representatives from the fleet, service headquarters, the Naval Analysis and Improvement Institution, and business to work with NPS college students and school on the Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) Workshop, one of many pillars of the NPS innovation course of.
This yr’s WIC Workshop, which ran from Sept. 18-21, centered on “Built-in Naval Campaigning,” with members attending panel discussions and dealing in groups to generate progressive options to challenges associated to that theme.
The occasion is coordinated and supported by NPS’ Naval Warfare Research Institute (NWSI) as a part of its efforts to attach NPS college and college students throughout campus and past to challenges confronted by naval forces. Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Kline, an NPS professor of observe who leads the year-long WIC marketing campaign of study, was inspired by the participation and success of this yr’s occasion.
“NPS has been internet hosting an annual Warfare Innovation Workshop for over 13 years,” stated Kline. “With over 100 people attending from warfare labs, business, warfare growth facilities, fleet staffs, the Pentagon, and our personal college and college students, we acquire a various set of technical, engineering, and operational expertise to generate ideas for using rising and present applied sciences in operational environments.”
Along with 108 lively members, the WIC Workshop had an extra 73 registered observers. Worldwide members from Australia, Taiwan, Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, South Korea, Singapore, India, and Colombia added depth and variety of experience, expertise, and views and drastically enhanced the group dynamics.
Earlier than breaking into groups, members attended panel discussions on the WIC Workshop theme and the NPS innovation course of. Rear Adm. Richard Seif, Commander, Submarine Power, U.S. Pacific Fleet (COMSUBPAC), spoke on the primary panel of the occasion that launched the workshop’s theme.
“It was nice to participate on this dialog about Built-in Naval Campaigning with the WIC members,” Seif stated. “Throughout the U.S. Navy, and notably inside the Submarine Power, we’re desirous about how expertise will have an effect on how we make use of our forces sooner or later. It is vitally essential that we use these conversations as alternatives to debate these potentialities and challenges. It’s inspiring to see how collaboration between warfare communities, nations, and generations comes collectively at this workshop to push the boundaries of how we take into consideration operations inside the maritime area.”
On the finish of the primary day, members divided into their teams. Every group examined the intersection of expertise and warfighting inside their subject. Throughout the subsequent three days, eight idea era groups – Amphibious Ops, Grey Zone Ops, Coalitions Ops, Undersea Ops, Superior Mining, Contested Logistics, Lengthy Vary Fires, and Future VTOL – had been guided by skilled mentors and facilitators via a fast idea era course of.
The final day of the occasion was devoted to group displays and evaluations. Every group supplied a short on their subject that outlined areas of concern after which new methods or applied sciences that addressed that concern. They responded to questions from the viewers and defended their options.
Among the many worldwide attendees was Indonesian Navy Lt. Rayhan Khar, an NPS scholar who was a part of the Maritime Grey Zone Operation working group.
“Our Grey Zone Operation group is just not solely speaking about how world powers compete, but additionally how partnerships and alliances will influence a state of affairs,” stated Khar, who’s at present learning Data Technique and Political Warfare within the NPS Division of Protection Evaluation. “We’re working with establishments like Johns Hopkins College and Lockheed Martin to have an open-minded dialogue. Our group is asking how we will do an operation with views from students, historians, and anthropologists together with army establishments.
“It is a good time to boost cooperation between nations to take care of freedom of navigation within the Indo Asia-Pacific and preserve the peace of Eurasia,” Khar added. “Collectively, we will construct a framework the place an awesome operation avoids escalation into an actual battle.”
The varied neighborhood was famous by different members as properly. Robert Zebrowski, a senior researcher on the Johns Hopkins College Utilized Physics Laboratory (JHU APL), graduated from NPS in 2011 and was excited to return to participate within the Grey Zone Operations group. He and different representatives from JHU APL are taking their expertise with WIC to coronary heart and on the lookout for methods to include ideas from the workshop into their jobs.
“I am within the reserves now, however from my day job I assist the Submarine Power. I analyze the fight management system, examine the algorithms, and see what the operator employment of the system is,” stated Zebrowski. “This occasion took me out of what I do each day. It was much more of an open considering, ideological method. At my work, we frequently take into consideration being a bridge between enterprise and business, so this has opened us to a tutorial perspective.”
The ultimate ideas offered by the eight groups, outlined on this preliminary report, can be leveraged to tell areas of analysis, and in creating potential options to maneuver ahead within the NPS innovation course of.
“We synthesize concepts from the varied innovation groups to additional develop within the year-long warfare innovation continuum, present candidates for the Naval Innovation Trade groups, recommend prototypes to check within the NPS discipline experimentation applications, and later have acquisition methods developed in our NPS Innovation Capstone Initiatives,” stated Kline. “However the actual worth is the connections made on the workshop between members. Junior officers alternate concepts with business and navy lab engineers. These connections present the idea for profession networking to presumably tackle future challenges past the WIC Workshop.”
NPS has outlined an innovation continuum that channels ideas via a six-step course of: supply, curate, ideate, prototype, experiment, and transition. Applications just like the WIC Workshop serve to place various teams collectively in a single area so concepts may be generated that make sense from each a analysis perspective and a warfighting want.
The NPS Workplace of Analysis and Innovation (OR&I) has been working to streamline the innovation continuum and guarantee there may be assist for every step of the innovation course of. Kaitie Penry, Director of Analysis Innovation inside OR&I, sees the WIC Workshop as a key contributor to the curation and ideation elements.
“The WIC Workshop actually types that first contact level of, ‘What’s it that we’re taking a look at?’” stated Penry. “It is available in after we have been capable of supply significant initiatives from the Fleet and Fleet Marine Power, OPNAV, ONR, or any related stakeholder. It supplies an area for us to place our ideas into manageable bites that may then have precise options developed in opposition to them.”
NPS has traditionally been a spot the place warfighting and analysis mix to create distinctive army options. As the college seems to cement the idea of the Naval Innovation Middle at NPS, the WIC Workshop and related occasions will kind a foundational block of what occurs on the middle and what NPS supplies again to the Navy.
