Exonaut: Delivering world-class training to the British Army

4C Strategies have been assisting the UK’s Collective Training Group deliver world class training in the British Army for the past 10 years with their Exonaut Training and Exercise Management System.

My initial career was within the British Army, as an officer in the Royal Engineers deploying around the world on operations, collective training exercises and construction tours. I was also involved with training exploitation identifying improvements to Royal Engineer training in a collective training context.

What value does our work bring to the British Army?

Working for 4C Strategies allows me to support the British Army by the provision an exercise planning, execution and delivery capability underpinned by our Exonaut software. Configured for the requirements of the British Army, the software is in use around the world in support of Battalion to Corps level Collective Training, Mission Specific Training and support to UK Operations. We also support the UK’s new Specialised Infantry Battalions in their training progression.

“The majority of the people in our team have over 20 years’ experience of Collective Training.”

Whenever the Exonaut system is used, one of 4C’s team of expert consultants is there to support the use of the system and to provide vital continuity. The majority of our team have over 20 years’ experience of Collective Training and work closely with the exercise planning and delivery team to deliver high quality exercises and ensure the training audience get the most from the exercise in terms of reports and training data to enable them to learn and progress.

So, what are you working on right now?

As an embedded, full time support to the British Army, I work closely with my military colleagues to configure the Exonaut system to meet their requirements. I also support the British Army Lessons process and update the assessment framework to allow greater capacity for training to be an engine for change.

Our team of Exonaut consultants have been assisting the Collective Training Group in the British Army for the past 10 years working in a true partnership with the military staff at the Collective Training Group, the chain of command and the training audience. In conjunction with other military Collective Training Organisations who also use the Exonaut software, we are able to update and configure the system to meet their evolving requirements. Examples of this include the need to produce visualisations for use in exercise exploitation which have been delivered over the past 1 ½ years.

“As an embedded, full time support to the British Army my work can be an engine for change.”

I have enjoyed the opportunity to use my background knowledge, academic research and knowledge of collective training to support the British Army with their Collective Training planning, delivery and Training Measurement and Evaluation capability.

What are we doing for The British Army?

Within our Integrated Training and Exercise Management system, we have the capability to Integrate a range of data and information with observations made by military Observer Controllers, who provide the assured context for the data, and this allows the immediate visualisation of those key metrics and enhanced accessibility of the Unit performance assessments.

We provide the British Army with the compendium of Training Objectives, a lessons process, medical data capture and embedded support. The system, which is hosted on the MOD’s network, but also with the ability to deploy and work offline, we provide the maximum flexibility to enable worldwide collective training delivery.

As part of the shared development of Exonaut, the development roadmap allows capability of the software to be shared between all users. The British Army have a world leading approach to objective based Collective Training and in many ways have been the leaders in the direction of Exonaut Training and Exercising Development.

“The British Army have a world leading approach to objective based Collective Training.”

They in turn have befitted from other client’s capability priorities which have been incorporated into the software to provide a continually updated software system able to meet evolving requirements.

4C Strategies have recently also provided Exonaut and consultancy support to the UK’s Army HQ interoperability programme with the provision of the Multinational Interoperability Assessment Tool and supported Exercise JOINT WARRIOR by providing the Exercise Main Events List and coordination software in Exonaut.

There’s an exhibition coming up soon, DSEI. What will 4C Strategies present there?

4C Strategies will be presenting our Exonaut Training and Exercise Management System. The system enables objective management, the design and delivery of complex, blended exercises and providing an assured mechanism for tracking training risk and performance, Exonaut is a highly configurable, end-to-end toolset specifically designed to meet a broad range of training, readiness management and capability development requirements.

“Recent innovations in the UK’s Collective Training has resulted in a new Training Measurement.”

What have 4C Strategies worked with that could be interesting for a visitor at DSEI?

As a global provider of Capability Development, Training and Exercise Management and Risk Management software and consultancy support, we work with a wide range of clients. Our offer has global appeal. For example, our software conforms to the NATO CREVAL evaluation requirements but is configurable and flexible enough to support different countries training systems. This means that the principles and efficiencies obtained through the experience of current clients are shared by virtue of the capability built into the software and synergies realised. Recent innovations include our ability to integrate our Training and Exercise Management tool with a wide variety of constructive simulations. This will enable Exonaut to ‘control’ the simulation and to integrate with C2 systems reducing the workload on the exercise control organisation and saving precious resource.