Better information has won as many battles as superior numbers of troops, and with this in mind the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is spending £4bn on the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII).

Once fully installed, DII will provide secure browser-based access at more than 2,000 sites in the UK and overseas.

But infrastructure is only as useful as the services that are running on it.

Two major application programs – the Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) program and the Joint Asset Management and Engineering System (James) – are running in parallel with the DII and will be the first test applications to make use of it.

The ultimate aim is for personnel on the battlefield to have the same information as they would at headquarters in the UK, MoD chief information officer John Taylor told Computing.

‘It is bridging the divide between the back office and front line,’ said Taylor. ‘Human resources (HR) is the first part, then we are taking it into the logistics management space. That is how we are evolving the capability.’

The first instance of the DII was in Afghanistan last month, used to access the JPA.

‘This is an important trailblazer not just to support service people in theatre but also with logistical information systems and tracking equipment,’ said Taylor.

‘By thinking end-to-end we can reach back from the theatre – in this case Afghanistan – to the UK and give our commanders and service people direct access to the same information services they would have back home.’

The JPA program, started in 2003, provides self-service facilities so that military personnel can carry out HR duties – such as filing expenses claims or receiving pay statements – wherever they are in the world.

‘The army is the biggest challenge; there are about 550 locations that we have to get the infrastructure out to,’ said Taylor.

The other key early use of DII is for logistics management. In the past, vehicle administration was done on paper, on a unit by unit basis. Technology can enable a broader view, says Taylor.

‘James is about the ability to look at the whole fleet across the army and be more efficient about the number of vehicles, repairs and so on,’ he said.

The first version of the system, focusing on vehicles such as cars and trucks, was rolled out to the army last year. Future steps include use of the technology to keep track of commodity supplies for the battlefield.

‘We are looking to use our early experiences to take the concept into other areas of army business such as equipment inventory,’ said Taylor.

‘And we are looking to get the same information capability into the deployed space so there is a better view of the state of our assets out in the theatre,’ he said.

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