European defence production is growing at a pace the sector has not seen for decades. ReArm Europe is targeting 800 billion euros, the SAFE instrument (Security Action for Europe) adds a further 150 billion euros in lending capacity, and national NATO budgets are growing in parallel. But according to Viktor Eliasson, CEO of Diadrom, another challenge risks being overlooked.
"For every new platform, variant and software version, a complexity builds up that many organisations underestimate. It's not always the case that someone has overall responsibility for the whole picture," he says.
According to Eliasson, the defence industry is facing a transformation reminiscent of the one the automotive industry underwent during the 2010s.
"The car industry has already gone through this journey. The defence sector is now facing many of the same issues, but the consequences can be greater because it involves systems where availability is directly linked to operational effect."
He describes a scenario that is becoming increasingly common when the same platform is sold to several different countries.
"Every customer wants their own sensors, their own communication solutions and their own customisations. After a few years, you no longer have a single product but hundreds or thousands of variants that need to be managed and kept updated."
The result is that software management evolves from a technical issue into a business-critical issue.
"The central question is actually quite simple: do we know exactly which software is installed on each individual unit, and can we update it when needed?"
Colonel Håkan Petersson, head of the armaments unit and land-based systems at the Swedish Armed Forces, agrees.
"The more complex the systems become, the more important control over configurations, maintenance and updates becomes. Otherwise, you risk losing availability exactly where you need it most," says Håkan Petersson.
"That's really the whole point. Operational effect isn't just about performance. It's also about ensuring systems function over time, that they can be maintained, and that you have control over your configuration," says Eliasson.
He argues that the defence industry is now approaching the same kind of software discipline that has emerged in the automotive sector through standards and working methods for cybersecurity, functional safety and lifecycle management.
"It's not the technology itself that's new. What's new is that the same working methods need to move into the defence sector."
Diadrom has its roots in research at Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg (western Sweden) and today works with software lifecycle, diagnostics and integration issues within complex technical systems. The company's software is used in, among other things, the Volvo EX90 and EX60, while the company has also delivered vehicle diagnostic systems to the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) for twelve years.
"In complex technical systems, the real challenge is getting the entire chain to work together and actually function in all situations. We are loyal to functionality, not to a single system or a single supplier."
Diadrom describes its role through the concept of "Diadrom Inside", which according to Eliasson is about ensuring that the whole works, not just the individual parts.
"The defence industry is facing a software-defined transformation. The question is not whether it will happen, but how well organisations manage to handle it."
In the next part of this feature series, Viktor Eliasson will elaborate on how experiences from the automotive industry can be used to reduce risks as the defence sector takes the step into an increasingly software-defined reality.