Fujitsu Support Competition 2020/2021

We are delighted to announce that the Fujitsu Future Support Challenge Competition has been re-opened. The competition will be running to an adjusted timeline and format taking into account limitations on face to face events.

Now in its 11th year the Fujitsu Future Support Challenge Competition seeks to encourage innovative thought from across the Logistics community.

• The Challenge questions remains unchanged, and the closing date is now 26th February 2021. Entries should be submitted to SupportCompetition@uk.fujitsu.com by 5pm.
• The entries will then be assessed by our marking panel of senior military, academic and industry experts and the winners will be selected.
• The top three teams and their Commanding Officers will be invited to an online event where the winner will be announced by Lt Gen Richard Wardlaw OBE, Chief of Defence Logistics and Support.
• The successful team will have the opportunity to take their proposal through the Fujitsu Digital Transformation Centre (DTC) in either a physical or virtual event. The key stakeholders and the winning team or individual will be supported in this workshop to develop their submission into a formal requirement that can be taken forward as a fully staffed business case.

We were delighted to host the winning team from the 2019 Competition in November. Their solution addressed the lack of automated tools to analyse inventory usage and forecasting future consumption requirements. The key stakeholders and winning team took part and after their DTC co-creation workshop the solution, involving the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, is now being progressed towards a pilot phase.

The 2020/2021 Challenge:

This year we have provided a choice of questions that we hope will generate interesting, innovative and achievable responses:

a. How would you generate Defence Support Network (DSN) survivability* set against likely future challenges to maintain the advantage over our adversaries? Describe your idea, what it might cost, the resources it would require and when it could be operationalised?
* including any potential forms of resilience measure.

b. What steps can Defence take now to deliver early wins regarding the Government-led Green Energy and Net Zero 50 Agendas. Describe a DSN-focussed initiative that you would implement, how it would work, what associated benefits it would deliver, what it would cost, how quickly it could be implemented and the challenges that you would need to overcome to ensure success?

Please send your proposal to the email address below. You may use but are not limited to the Project Initiation Document and/or short Business Case proforma (copies can be downloaded below),noting that both provide a useful indication of the elements that the submission will be assessed against, with a view to developing your idea further through Fujitsu’s Digital Technology Centre. Your proposal can be tactical to strategic in nature, but should include consideration of how it would mesh with a digitally-enabled, more automated DSN. In order to generate useful efficiencies, reduce risk and error rates whilst also assuring improving support agility, velocity and resilience.

Send your submission via email to SupportCompetition@uk.fujitsu.com by 5pm on 26th February 2021. Teams are limited to 5 people. Open to all Armed Forces Personnel and MOD Civil Servants.

Cash prizes will be allocated as stated below.

1st place team – £5,000
2nd place team – £1000
3rd place team – £500

Rear Admiral Andy Kyte, ACDS (Log Ops)

“This is a great opportunity to seek your ideas on how you think we could address some of our near and longer-term Defence Support Challenges. Today, we are already operating in a contested environment where the difficulty of assuring support to current and future operations continues to grow, both in terms of the threats that we must overcome and the pressing need to create a resilient and sustainable future Defence Support Network. Your experience, expertise and ideas are an essential resource that we must exploit and the Fujitsu Support Challenge competition offers an ideal platform to achieve this. With the recent appointment of the Chief of Defence Logistics and Support we have an opportunity to further leverage your inputs and effect real change. I encourage all personnel to embrace this initiative and the potential rewards that it offers.”