Improving decision-making in the British Army with Cervus

As global tensions increase, militaries face an increasing imperative to stay on the strategic front foot by optimising their data-driven decision-making capabilities.

Data is the central pillar of a modern military’s operational outlook. With the pervasiveness of digital systems at their disposable, defence organisations are able to leverage a multitude of live data feeds to form detailed operating pictures for strategic and tactical decision making. With the right tools, these can also be used for exploratory simulations that uncover the likelihood and conditions of possible future outcomes further bolstering confidence in decision-making. Such is the expectation of those undergoing digital transformation, driven by the necessity to maintain strategic foresight in an increasingly complex and data-rich digital age.

Digital transformation has been an explicit priority in the British MOD for many years. Initiatives such as the Army’s Future Soldier programme have laid a framework for reorganising military operations around novel technologies that can decisively improve strength, safety, and efficiency. The British military thus seeks to be world-leader in technological capability, with a strong emphasis on being agile, interconnected and data-driven at every level of its operations. Recently, in his RUSI address, Chief of the General Staff General Sir Patrick Sanders called for an acceleration to this change, emphasising the urgency of reaching preparedness as the time comes for mobilisation.

In line with this, various government programmes have offered funding to companies that can produce cutting-edge tools which contribute to the achievement of the military’s goals. It is in this context that, In November 2021, Hadean and Cervus were selected for a joint contract under the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) programme to develop ‘The Forge’, a Digital Decision Support Engine that leverages the power of distributed cloud computing to improve speed and accuracy in data-driven decision-making.

The project combines Cervus’ expertise in data analysis and simulation methodologies with Hadean’s capabilities for scaling, orchestrating, and distributing complex simulation applications on the cloud, with a view to radically optimising decision makers’ abilities to receive robust data to support mission-critical decision-making in time-sensitive circumstances.

Leveraging the Hadean Platform’s unique cloud distribution model for the parallelisation of multiple complex iterative simulations, Cervus has built a front-end that allows users to input data from various live sources, customise their simulation queries, and receive results at unprecedented speed. The inherent flexibility cloud-native applications, along with Hadean Platform’s built-in edge networking capabilities, enable The Forge to be frictionlessly deployed to any number of geographically disparate clients. With this in place, decision makers can be confident of receiving accurate and timely decision support regardless of their circumstances, leveraging objective simulation data to cut through biases, boost confidence, and ultimately save lives through mission success.

The production of The Forge is a stellar example of the MoD’s increasing willingness to give backing to collaborations between cutting-edge SMEs, leveraging their unique capabilities to accelerate the achievement of its goals for UK Defence. It is a great honour for both Hadean and Cervus to be part of these initiatives and to contribute to the improvement and futureproofing of our armed forces.

In this webinar, we catch up with CEO of Cervus, Alan Roan, to discuss the requirements of a fully realised digital transformation, and how we were able to join forces under the DASA programme to provide improved decision support capabilities to the British Army.