Top soldier hopes Forces can reduce overhead, increase efficiency

[57Chevy]

Top soldier hopes Forces can reduce overhead, increase efficiency:

The Canadian Forces have too much overhead in some headquarters and officials are looking to re-assign military personnel to field units as they prepare for future operations, says the country’s top soldier.

Gen. Walter Natynczyk, Canada’s chief of defence staff, said although the review of the current command structure, both in Ottawa and elsewhere, has yet to be done, he is hoping to see some military personnel shifted to frontline units.

(article continues)

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/soldier+hopes+Forces+reduce+overhead+increase+efficiency/3149910/story.html#ixzz0qmwDVp7o

 

[daftandbarmy]

Why is it that everytime I see the word 'efficiency' during an economic downturn I think of 'layoffs'? Oh, maybe because organizations like the CF like to purge themsleves of the younger, talented people, while hanging on to all the old politic0 butt kissers, in the name of 'efficiency'.

 

[stealthylizard]

Less field exercises???

 

[blacktriangle]

I read that we are standing up a new "Divisional HQ" in Kingston. Didn't we have this same thing not so long ago (before my time possibly, but wasn't it in the last 10-15 years?), only for it to be done away with?

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Less field exercises???

Are you suggesting that as an answer to the problem?  ???

 

[211RadOp]

I read that we are standing up a new "Divisional HQ" in Kingston. Didn't we have this same thing not so long ago (before my time possibly, but wasn't it in the last 10-15 years?), only for it to be done away with?

The last time 1st Canadian Division stood up, prior to this year, was in 1989 to be disbanded again in 2000.

 

[CBH99]

This is a good topic for debate, and one that I'm sure a lot of us that have been in for a while now have some ideas on.

What are some of your ideas & suggestions on how we could become more efficient??  How could we save money, or use our time & manpower more efficiently, than we are now??

 

[TimBit]

Rumor around town is that the dot coms are going down the drain...soon.

 

[vonGarvin]

The Canadian Forces have too much overhead in its headquarters

There, I fixed the quote in the first post in this thread.  That is where we should start.

 

[Old Sweat]

The challenge in restructuring in search of reduced overhead and increased efficiency is to get the aim right. Is the objective to improve the efficiency of the process, or is it to increase the quality and quantity of the results? At the risk of oversimplification, the choice is between the Eaton's and Walmart business models. Too often in the CF we have gone for solutions which make the management process work better, at least on powerpoint, while not really producing any tangible results for our employment of the operational forces.

Maybe this time will be different, with the CDS playing good cop, and Lieutenant General Leslie doing the dirty work.

 

[Tank Troll]

The last time 1st Canadian Division stood up, prior to this year, was in 1989 to be disbanded again in 2000.

Yeah Dangerous Jack was the Commander and some one that frequents these boards was his Driver.

This is a good topic for debate, and one that I'm sure a lot of us that have been in for a while now have some ideas on.
What are some of your ideas & suggestions on how we could become more efficient??  How could we save money, or use our time & manpower more efficiently, than we are now??

If some piece of equipment or vehicle is damaged/broke to the point that it will cost more to fix it than buy a new, then buy a new one. Don't pay 3 million to fix a Tank that only cost 1 million to replace. Or 10 million on a 3 million dollar boat.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I find it odd that the US has had some success with their recently introduced 'plug and play' brigades - making a conscious effort to get away from the large and unwieldy 'divisions' - yet we seem to be going down the path of yester year.

It would seem to make more sense to reinforce our brigades to make them more combat capable, partnering them up with our 'mole-itia' brigades for support while making them more self-reliant and viable, and running a plug and play plan from Ottawa, or wherever, to meet the nation's needs.

Then again, I haven't stayed at a Holiday Inn Express for awhile now...  ;D

 

[PPCLI Guy]

There has been no suggestion (yet) of establishing a Division - rather it is about deployable HQ that can be scaled from either Div level (think RC South) to Brigade / National Command Element level (think Task Force Kandahar).  Moreover, it could also be used for something like, say, Task Force Games or even the G20.  The continual ad-hocery of HQs is problematic - and is further hampered by a cumbersome and static command structure (ie the dotcoms).

I think that this is a unique opportunity to re-imagine our command and control structure to better suit the nature, scope and duration of the kind of operations we find ourselves involved in.  I would imagine that everything is on the table, and that once the dust settles, we will see some substantial changes - and not just for their own sake - no need to respond with the tired and shopworn "leading change"knee-jerk response.

 

[dapaterson]

We are dancing around semantics.  We are standing up a Div HQ - less any troops under command so far.

Using my simple brain, however, I look at an office building to the south east of NDHQ and wonder why, if we have 600 staff officers there for "operational commands", we are unable to generate HQs from that group to command on operations?

One would think that 600 staff officers could easily man an ongoing commitment of 60 to Afghanistan, plus surge to provide another 60 for the Olympics or G8/G20 or some other routine, scheduled event, and retain sufficient capacity for their day to day office work.

That we now have 600 more staff officers and complain of a lack of capacity for C3 suggests, to me, an organization prime for pruning.

(Our penchant for massive HQs is another issue that needs to be addressed - how many LCol and above do we currently have deployed in Afghanistan?  How many are truly needed, and how many are branch X wanting to get some of their senior people the tick in the box?)

 

[PPCLI Guy]

We are dancing around semantics.  We are standing up a Div HQ - less any troops under command so far.

Using my simple brain, however, I look at an office building to the south east of NDHQ and wonder why, if we have 600 staff officers there for "operational commands", we are unable to generate HQs from that group to command on operations?

One would think that 600 staff officers could easily man an ongoing commitment of 60 to Afghanistan, plus surge to provide another 60 for the Olympics or G8/G20 or some other routine, scheduled event, and retain sufficient capacity for their day to day office work.

That we now have 600 more staff officers and complain of a lack of capacity for C3 suggests, to me, an organization prime for pruning.

It is more than merely semantics.  CEFCOM was established as a static organization and it has a static mindset in its well-appointed static facility.  A deployable HQ would be manned differently, and would be organized differently.  And I am not for one minute suggesting that we transfer those 600 PYs from Startop to Kingston.  Rather I think we need to do a first principles review of the C2 needs of the CF (start with Strategic Joint Staff - designed to be a short hallway, but quickly re-assumed the functions of DCDS that CEFCOM and CANCOM were supposed to replace - but I digress) and then work our way through all L1s and then to formations etc.

A rough order of magnitude SWAG that is PIDOOMA based would suggets that we could easily meet the existing PY pressures and bids....

(Our penchant for massive HQs is another issue that needs to be addressed - how many LCol and above do we currently have deployed in Afghanistan?  How many are truly needed, and how many are branch X wanting to get some of their senior people the tick in the box?)

Sadly some of this is out of our hands - call is the multi-national coefficient of rank inflation....

 

[Jarnhamar]

If some piece of equipment or vehicle is damaged/broke to the point that it will cost more to fix it than buy a new, then buy a new one. Don't pay 3 million to fix a Tank that only cost 1 million to replace. Or 10 million on a 3 million dollar boat.

Whoa
You've just been red flagged by about 6 dozen IT guys at NDHQ for this VERY Un-Canadian Forces like talk.

 

[Michael OLeary]

Whoa
You've just been red flagged by about 6 dozen IT guys at NDHQ for this VERY Un-Canadian Forces like talk.

You never have to worry about the IT guys at NDHQ, they're so far behind that when someone asks them about tablets, they think cuneiform.

 

[Infanteer]

I find it odd that the US has had some success with their recently introduced 'plug and play' brigades - making a conscious effort to get away from the large and unwieldy 'divisions' - yet we seem to be going down the path of yester year.

The American's aren't moving away from Divisions at all - Divisions are still the primary large-scale tactical unit in their arsenal  and they currently have 3(?) in Iraq and 2 in Afghanistan.  The movement towards Brigade Combat Teams was an effort to push combat support/combat service support slices commonly found in US Doctrine at the Divisional level down to the Brigades to make them more independant; infact, if anything, this mirrors the Canadian practice of very robust Brigades.

I do agree with what PPCLI is getting at - we need a deployable, scalable structure.  In my view, the HQ should do three things:
1.  Provide a Division HQ for the 3 Reg Force Brigades, thus eliminating the need for the 4 Area Commands;
2.  Should train and be able to deploy as the Div Command for the 3 CMBGs in the event of a major regional contingency; and
3.  Should be able to provide, in conjunction with the CMBGs, the manning for expeditionary task force HQs.  Having this HQ will allow Task Forces to be fielded without completely depleting the CMBGs which usually still have at least half a brigade to run at home.  As well, it will allow the Div Command to work as a team so that, in the event that we are given such a command (as has happned in the past) we don't have to build from scratch.

I like calling it 1 Can Div not because it should mirror the old one, but because I'm nostalgic.

My 2 cents.

PS.  Much of the characteristics that PPCLI Guy mentioned seem very similar to the idea of the USMC MAGTF.  However, MAGTFs - MEUs, MEBs, and MEFs - are separate structures from the Marine Divisions and take command of them or their components when deployed on expeditionary operations.  I'm not sure we want (can sustain) HQs independant of field forces that are maintained simply for command and control?

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Add in a Div (on the Army side) to command all of the Militia Brigades, and a re-invented DCDS that provides nowt more than overwatch and short hallway functions to CDS, I think that you are onto something very close to what the current Chief of Transformation wrote in his 1999 AMSC paper (which has disappeared from the net...)

 

[dapaterson]

Add in a Div (on the Army side) to command all of the Militia Brigades, and a re-invented DCDS that provides nowt more than overwatch and short hallway functions to CDS, I think that you are onto something very close to what the current Chief of Transformation wrote in his 1999 AMSC paper (which has disappeared from the net...)

The CF`s C2 conundrums are wider than just the Army - any attempt to address them must be joint, and must also open the kimonos of all the top-level organizations.  Fixing the Army C2 without fixing the CF does nothing.

Branches such as MARE, EME, AERE and Log need to have their NDHQ-centric models pared back; if over 50% of your occupation strength is in NDHQ, perhaps those functions are not core military, but rather can be addressed through public service hiring.


We also need a return to some basic principles.  We assign an infantry section commander a 2 i/c plus eight troops, since we know that a broader span of control creates problems of communication, co-ordination and control.  CF Transformation ignored basic group dynamics, and posited that expanding the number of direct reports woudl streamline communication, co-ordination and control.

Perhaps some of the quesitons that need to be asked include: What functions should be vested in DND?  What functions in the CF?  What functions can be combined into one?  What functions can be divested?  What functions can be delivered outside DND/CF to better effect?

Examples:  How large a Civ HR organization do we need, given the existence of the Public Service Commission and other GoC agencies?  Why do we engage in pay delivery, when PWGSC has a common payment system for the remainder of the government?  Do we need an undergraduate military university?  Is C2 abroad fundamentally different from C2 at home, or can both be delivered by the same entity?