Hello and welcome to the APM Podcast.
My name is Professor Adam Bodison and I'm the Chief
Executive of APM and your host today.
We're delighted to welcome to the podcast Steve Langbridge.
Now Steve is the Director of Programmes at SEAA Company,
based in the southwest of England, which specialises in
developing and delivering defence solutions to a global
customer base. It's business areas include
naval, ship and fleet protection and undersea surveillance
systems. Steve was appointed to his
Director role in July, having previously been head of the
Project Management office. In this conversation, Steve's
going to tell us what it's like to deliver projects and
programmes in the defence sector, including the challenges
of working in such a fast evolving and complex space.
So Steve, thanks very much for joining us.
And to kick off, let's talk a little bit about you and your
background. Can you give us a a sense of
your background and also your career journey to date?
Yeah, hi. I mean, it's great to meet you
and I really appreciate the opportunity to to join today.
So in terms of my background, I've been really fortunate to
work across a number of sectors with, with lots of really
exciting teams. But if I if I rewind right back
to the start, I began my career as an electronic engineering
apprentice. I was really fortunate to work
for a company that supported my education and I developed along
that technical path all the way through to a bachelor's degree
level in, in electronics. At that point, I made a switch
into, into management and leadership when I, I completed a
master's degree in engineering management alongside various
other complementary leadership and project management
qualifications. And, and I guess it's this point
in that, that transition that coincided with my move away from
hands on engineering and into leadership positions.
So, so professionally over the last 20 years, I've had the
privilege of leading diverse teams across Europe, delivering
projects in sectors ranging from industrial power generation to
aerospace to fast moving consumer goods.
And then as you mentioned more recently in the defence base
with SEA. I've had the again, the
privilege of delivering everything from major capital
investment projects in personal care, manufacturing lines all
the way through to the design and development of complex
systems, some of which I'm sure we'll touch on today.
Over the course of my career, I've held senior leadership
roles across engineering, operations and now programmes,
but I guess the key theme here is that the focus is always on
delivery people and continuous improvement.
I, I, I know we always have that advice.
You know, when you write your CV and they say it's going to be on
2 pages, I'm thinking that's a heck of ACV Steve, isn't it?
You know, I don't know how you would keep it on the 2 pages,
but brilliant that, that, what a fantastic background.
So that's a bit about you. What about SCA?
You kind of touched on it briefly.
Maybe you could tell us a bit about when it was founded and
the types of products you develop, who your customers are
and so on. Yeah, absolutely.
So SEA or systems engineering assessment as is otherwise known
is AUK based defence company. We were founded in 1961 and we
were inquired by the cohort PLC who are an independent
technology group in 2007. So our team is is made-up of
over 400 people and we operate across the southwest of the UK
with three sites and we also have a wholly owned subsidiary
in Canada. So as you mentioned at the
start, our expertise lie in shipping, free protection,
underwater surveillance and complex systems integration.
The big things for us as we design, manufacture and deliver
a wide range of advanced products and capabilities which
are often modular and adaptable to meet specific customer
challenges. So some of the core products and
and again I'm sure we'll touch on this later, but we deliver
world leading torpedo launcher systems both into the UK and and
Navy's globally. We have Cratesense Toda Ray
system, which is a flexible scaler, scalable and modular
sonar system. And then most recently we have
designed, developed a trainable countermeasure launcher called
Ancilla, which is a rapid protection decoy system designed
to protect naval vessels. I'll do some jargon busting on
that, that that later. All of the products that we we
make are designed and manufactured at our facility in
North Devon and we support customers including the UKMOD
and other navies internationally across Asia, the Indo Pacific
region, Europe, South America and Canada.
We work closely with shipyards, governments and lots of defence
partners. So we're we're in a really good
position because we understand some of the challenges that that
are being faced and we're again uniquely positioned that we can
provide solutions that meet these challenges both now and in
the longer term. The the last thing on this I
mentioned is that we're part of the larger group called the
cohort EOC. The benefit of this for us is
that this group gives us the backing and the stability of a
larger organisation while still allowing us to operate with the
agility and focus of a specialised mid tier defence
business. Yeah, exciting.
It is very exciting and, and you know, obviously the, the world
is in a very challenging place at the moment.
You know, there's obviously conflicts going on all over the
place and, and I guess for businesses operating in a
defence space like yours, there's going to be huge demands
and expectation from you to kind of to meet probably what I guess
is a, a growing order book. I also mindful that some of some
of the projects you're working on will be quite sensitive and
you may not be able to talk about them all, but are there
any that you can talk about and give us some examples of of
maybe the kinds of projects that you're working on?
Yeah, absolutely. So I kind of alluded to some of
the exciting stuff in in the last question, but if I pick up
on those three in particular. So Ancilla which is our decoy
launcher is a new flexible maritime countermeasure system.
This is designed to provide rapid protection to ships from
modern threats like anti ship missiles.
Before I kind of go any further on that, a countermeasure is a
bit it's essentially something that's designed to deceive or
mislead a threat such as an incoming missile.
There are lots of different types of countermeasures, but
typically they can include things like physical decoys that
create a cloud that masks a target or a ship, or it can be a
pyrotechnic countermeasure that fires a flare to attract heat
seeking missiles. So that's essentially what the
decoy launcher does and and how the countermeasures operate.
So, so for us on cilia it is is a slightly different.
So older systems are typically fixed in place on a ship.
So when a threat is detected, the ship would need to adjust so
that it could fire the countermeasure in the
appropriate position. What's really important here is
that and sillier is actually trainable by its nature.
And what that means is it can rotate and be aimed, meaning the
ship doesn't have to respond and and move to these threats.
That's really vital because the speed of missiles is
significantly different now to what it was 20 years ago.
So that's a vital capability and we recently won a, a £135
million contract with the UKMOD to give our navies this
capability to help us defend against attacks at sea.
So that's that, That's kind of the first one.
The the second one is is a product called Cratesense.
And this is a flexible sonar system which includes one of our
world leading toad array systems called Crater Wave.
But again, a little bit of explanation what that means.
A toad array is essentially an underwater surveillance system
that's made-up of acoustic sensors, usually hydrophones,
which are to really just underwater microphones which are
towed behind a ship on a long cable they used to detect and
trap underwater objects like submarines and other things.
Obviously a key part of this though is to correctly identify
the sounds you're picking up. What you don't want to do is mis
categorise a ship with a whale or a wave or something like
that. So that's that's kind of how a
toad array works and that's where kind of create sense for
us comes in. It comprises of a 20 millimetre
toad array and and that's quite small compared to traditional
toad arrays, which are more like 19 millimetres.
This smaller size naturally means it's lighter and therefore
uses a lot less power than traditional arrays and this
means that it can be fitted to a wider range of vessels.
Again, typically these older systems are more complex,
they're very large and they're really only suitable for
specialist navies and specialist ships.
Whereas again, this is this is more flexible so it can be
fitted on smaller ships and can even be used in an uncrewed on
an uncrewed vehicle too. This flexibility also means
that, you know, navies that are operating across large
coastlines or island regions where threats seem to be growing
at a faster rate can have this type of protection.
So this is an essential key product as we move forward in
the anti submarine warfare kind of world.
And again, we're, you know, much like Ryan Cillier product that
we talked about before, we're really proud to be supplying
Cratesense to a Southeast Asian Navy and which is really helping
them enhance their defence and again, and get this cost point
completely different to that that heavy infrastructure.
And then probably lastly and it just rounding off the other
products we talked about earlier is our torpedo launcher system.
So this is designed as a lightweight system that can
defend against submarines and other threats.
For us our TLS or our torpedo launcher system is configurable.
One of our configurations is a triple launcher, which means we
can fire all three torpedoes from one unit at a time.
And this is quite a unique product as well because it's
weapon agnostic. So navies aren't locked into one
safari or one round time. There are some configurations
that are needed, but that's, that's a, that's a unique thing
for us and it's relatively easy to maintain and much like our
other two products and we have recently secured contracts to
supply this to the Royal Malaysian Navy as well as navies
in Latin America. So hopefully that gives you a,
you know, a good flavour of what we're working on on a day-to-day
basis. Thank you for that, Steve.
So yeah, it's really interesting.
And I wonder if I just might ask a different question before I
ask you about kind of what a typical day looks like.
At the beginning you talked about your career trajectory
almost as an engineer. I know that you're now in a kind
of director of programmes role. So I kind of project type role.
And when I listen to you talking about the various products that
SEA has, I was in my mind thinking as a kind of product
management element to this. I mean as a kind of
professional, how do you kind of I identify so is it as an
engineer, as a project professional, as a product, a
development professional? Is it a bit of all of those?
Yes, it's a great question. I don't know if I've ever been
asked that. I, I, I see myself as a project
professional. And I think that's, that's
really important because I think it's a, it's a, it's a skill set
that provides a unique, a unique offer into the world.
And sometimes you don't always really notice that.
But I absolutely see myself as a, as a project professional.
And I'm fortunate that I've had some really fantastic rounding
in other areas. And I find that particularly in
my current role in the defence, that my engineering background
is helpful. Honestly, it gives you that
broader understanding of what's actually happening on the
ground, what the team's really working on.
And, and because I've been there a little bit myself, albeit a
long time ago, you, you kind of see some of the challenges, but
also some of the really good things they do.
So again, that's really helpful. And similarly, the operational
elements of my, my previous lives, I guess one of the better
words again, gives me that kind of understanding of what's
happened in other parts of our business, which again are vital
to projects. But now I absolutely see myself
as a project profession. But I'm grateful for your
beauties I've had. I was hoping that's what you
would say. So in terms of your, your role
then at the moment. So you, you obviously got this
recently, recent promotion as the director of programmes.
You know, there'll be people listening to this that don't
have a sense of what that means in practise.
You know, what is, is there such a thing as a typical day?
You know, what is the, the remit of the role?
Can you tell us a little bit about about that, what that
means? Yeah, of course.
And I, I guess the first thing I can say is, as you would
probably imagine and everybody else would imagine, it's quite
broad. It's quite broad in scope.
And I suppose if you boil that right back, it's at its core.
I'm ultimately accountable the project and programme delivery
and performance of both projects and programmes across our
business. So that means I really need to
ensure that we've got the right capability in our teams, the
right structure and the right culture to ensure that we can
continue to deliver complex solution with both agility.
And that's a really big thing, particularly as our world is
evolving, but also assurance. So those are the kind of the
real, the core bits. I mean, we talked about some of
the, the competencies of SCA earlier and, and me
specifically, I leave a team structured around 8 distinct
business areas. And each of these areas are
responsible for delivering specialist capabilities to our
various customers globally range in for things like the torpedo
launches that are talked about to advanced solar systems to Com
system. So there's a lot in there too.
And these teams are at the heart of our growth ambitions.
And, and through the projects that they're delivering and the
products they're creating, the project teams and the
engineering and technical teams within them are basically
delivering stuff that's reinforcing our reputation as a
trusted supplier. I suppose it is difficult to
really tell you what a typical day looks like, but ultimately
my role really is about enabling teams to deliver high impact
solutions and and about clearing the path for them to be able to
do what they're good at. So yeah, it's absolutely that.
Really. Yeah, that makes sense.
So, so let's talk a little bit then about the kind of
commercial side of things. So my impression of the defence
sector traditionally, as has been, it's quite a high bar to
enter. So you know, like a new, a new
company turning up, for example, that wanted to compete with you,
I think would find it or historically would have found it
quite difficult for all kinds of reasons ranging from, you know,
national security, intelligence type thresholds to, to, to, to
get through and so on. But also the, the, the, the, the
kind of level of, of technology and innovation, you kind of need
it. It would be quite hard as a new
player coming into that. However, now with advances in
tech and, and so on, I, I wonder whether that's changing.
And, and also just how as an organisation you just kind of
keep ahead of the curve because I guess you've also got
organisations similar to yours operating in other parts of the
world who are competing against you and supplying other
countries and so on. So how do you stay ahead of
what's going on and kind of continue to be innovative and
everything else? Yeah, you're right.
Actually the barriers to entries that were that's typically a
kind of subsiding a little bit now.
And we talk about the evolution in the defence base.
Obviously the government is well publicised, the government are
investing a lot of money in the Union and and this in this
increase in investment is absolutely driving a rapidly
evolving well. So innovation is typically
happening on multiple bunts. And what we're seeing is that
there's a major shift towards autonomous vehicles and, and
emerging sonar technologies. So for us, it's about making
sure that we're playing in the right places and that we're
using our skill sets in the right areas.
So, you know, a key area we're focused on is evolving our sonar
technologies to allow for faster updates, greater interrogation
of data, better fit with evolving navies and platforms
and giving that kind of improved cross functionality to different
domains and not just necessarily always the maritime domain.
Obviously this this transition to kind of unmanned vehicles
and, and investment in ships and marines into operability or the
ability to work with different systems is absolutely key.
And again, that's something that's at the forefront of our
mind when we develop. You know, they're essentially
got a modern defence. The, the thing about in terms of
staying ahead of the curb, we're really proud of SCA are all of
the ways that we kind of do that.
You mention about small businesses, we're uniquely
positioned here too in that we're still small enough that we
can respond quickly for changing demands and we can be agile and
we can pivot, but we're large enough that we can scale to
solutions. So the other thing that we do
and I talked about those products earlier is we invest
our own funds in product development and innovation.
So we're not always waiting. We're, we're investing ourselves
in, in private bench work and we, we determine how best to do
that through a few different means.
So we've got a a whole host of subject matter experts and
domain specialists within our business, which we're very
fortunate to have. We also have as we talked about
earlier, close relationships with navies and customers around
the world and kind of the combination of these help us
shape our product Rd mass to match what we see as the
immediate needs today, but give us a steal on what we think the
emerging needs are. So in some cases what we need
today is going to be a little bit different to what we need in
5-10 years time. So we have to kind of predict a
little bit, but we're well positioned.
The other nice thing that we do, so in those eight business areas
that have one of those of research and simulation business
area and that particular area works really closely with
defence science and the technology laboratory with PSTL
and they deliver research and studies for the UKMOD.
So this collaboration is, is also a great bus.
It doesn't just support cutting edge exploration, but it also
ensures that all of the outcomes from that are strategically
along with what we're working on.
So again, it's another extra insight that helps us stay on
that front foot. So I suppose what I'm really
saying is, is that kind of blended approach between the the
technical work we do with the STL, the customer insight that
we have and some of our own kind of strategic foresight means
that we can kind of stay compared.
Yeah, that, that, that all makes good sense.
I like that idea of the sweet spot.
Small enough to be nimble, but large enough to scale.
That's that's really interesting.
What you, you didn't really touch on AI so much there.
You know, it's obviously impacting every business in
every country. How is it affecting the the
sector, but specifically the work that you're doing on a
day-to-day basis? Yes, great question, isn't it?
And of course it's it's really easy and and really tempting to
get caught up in in with the hyper guiding AI.
And it also doesn't seem that sensible to ignore it.
At SCA, what we're doing really is identifying specific areas
where we can use AI in a targeted manner.
So again, we've talked a common effect through this so far has
been our solar systems, and that's where AI and machine
learning can be transformational to the way that we process data
and analyse data. So this is particularly crucial
for navies that are starting to use uncrewed vehicles.
So what we need are systems that can rapidly detect, respond and
even predict threats. And of course, all of that needs
to be done with minimal human intervention.
So in effect, what we're looking at is how can AI augment
traditional capabilities and reduce the workload of
traditional sonar operators and still enable fast data
understanding an accurate, an aid accurate decision making.
So that's really where it's really making the biggest inroad
for us at the moment in our product offering.
But outside that, the use of AI is going to have an impact
everywhere else from meeting support to document production
to software development. It does sort of seem inevitable
that this is going to on everywhere to make everybody's
lives easier and, and really free up time for impactful
things. So, yeah, so for us, there's a
lot of hype, but what we're doing is making sure that we're
taking a measured, innovation driven approach to integrating
AI where we think it can make a real difference.
What I I hear and see out and about is the more that that the
defence sector kind of uses AI to keep people safe, the more
that people who are out there wanting to cause threats are
going to use AI to tackle that. You know, are we going to end
up, if I kind of get my crystal ball out for a moment now, are
we going to end up in a situation where when there is
conflict between countries and so on that we're going to end up
actually with just AI fighting other AI?
Is that is that where we're headed?
It's. Hard to predict, isn't it?
But the thing you write warfare, warfare is changing rapidly and
and that's what's driving, that's what's driving innovation
and and the big change in innovation.
So if you think about, you know, the war in Ukraine, it's being
fought in a different kind of way with drones and you know,
autonomous vehicles and AI driven responses and threat
detection. So it's not unreasonable.
It's not, it's not unreasonable to think that, you know, it will
continue to change the way that warfare works.
And that's some of the challenge that we have and other companies
have where we have to predict what we need right now and what
we think we're going to use in the next couple of years.
But what will warfare and what will defence look like in in
kind of five years time? So it's difficult to answer, but
you're right, it is easier to see the defence, particularly
being, you know, more focused on our technology.
Interesting, interesting times. Now, I always talk about the
project profession and project management roles being kind of
transferable between sectors. But equally I also know that
there are some things that are specific to particular sectors.
You know, if you're working in the legal profession, delivering
projects, it's going to be different than if you're in
nuclear, if you're in defence and so on.
So when it comes to defence, what would you say is the things
that might be unfamiliar to people who are outside of the
defence sector? So what is it that your project
professionals are dealing with? Kind of, if you like, above and
beyond the standard expectations of project professionals.
It's, it is unique, you're right.
But like all sectors, managing scope is always a challenge.
I suppose the the thing in defence is, is that scope can
vary massively. So you can end up with a
situation where you have, you know, really detailed
requirements at a low technical level actually, and for a
different customer, you can have something that's really high
level and board. And I suppose the key for us is
to interfere all of these types of things found them in a way
that aligns with our workload friends and quite honestly gives
us a clear, manageable contracting mechanism.
You know, with that variety in scope, it's really important
that we make sure that we can both get on and off contracts so
that they're quite important. But beyond that, one of the more
distinct challenges in defence sector, which we we kind of
always touched on is the pace of pace of change and the rise of
uncrewed and autonomous platforms.
So this means that we're constantly ensuring that
capabilities we're developing today will remain relevant over
the life of the project or the programme.
So we manage this, as we said earlier, by investing in our own
product development. But again, we need to make sure
that those products we're developing today do have the
ability to kind of pivot and diversify themselves or the
ability to spiral develop them and add future capabilities.
So that's also that's also quite important.
The, the irony here though, in the defence sector is that this
rapid pace at the innovation stage, it contrasted with the
long life cycle of a project. Once you're on contract, it's
not unusual once again, once you're on contract for a project
to run for 10 years or more, particularly once the capability
is in service. So, so the change is kind of
shift. So at that point, skills
retention, knowledge continuity and and maintaining long term
stakeholder relationship becomes really crucial because again,
it's not just a A1 to two year project and in, you know, in
sectors like IT potentially projects are a lot faster in
turn around. So we need to kind of consider
that. And then going back to that
capability piece, over the course of that 1015 years, how
are we going to introduce spiral development?
How are we going to increase capability, particularly when
today we don't necessarily know what that's going to look like,
but you know, the physical system is there.
And of course, in that same time frame, you've got things like
obsolescence tonight. So again, things like processing
today and and the, the, the type of systems that are needed today
are going to look quite different to kind of 1012 years
time, particularly if we talk about AI advances.
So those types of things are, are quite different in our
world. So I suppose while the core
principles are generally shared across lots of sectors, defence
demands a unique balance, that ability to move quickly and
innovate, but also kind of plan for longevity, sustainability
and mission critical delivery. So it's a bit of an oxy ball of
it. Yeah.
No, that makes sense. And so you talk about skills
there. Do you, when you're recruiting
for staff, do you kind of recruit kind of if you like pure
project professionals and then give them the extra that they
might need that you've just talked about?
Or do you try and recruit specifically to these quite
specialist kind of skills that you've you've talked about?
So if we, if we focus on the project management sphere for a
second, you know, the reality is we take a blended approach to
recruitment and we're actively looking to bring in experienced
senior project leaders, particularly with people that
have a background in, you know, defence project delivery,
because their sector knowledge and, and you know, educational
background, I mean, they can hit the ground running for us.
So they're, they're incredibly valuable.
But at the same time with with family committees developing
talent from within and that includes bringing in junior
professionals and helping them develop through our business.
Sometimes it means taking other people within others other
departments. So engineers are a good example
and cross training those, particularly when an engineer
demonstrates strong potential and a genuinely interest in
project management. But we also welcome individuals
from outside our sector who've got solid project management
fundamentals but might need support to build up that
industry specific experience. So that, that's kind of the, the
approach and obviously recruitment varies for us
massively depending on our site. So we got three sites in
Southwest. It's obviously easier to recruit
in Bristol for lots of reasons than it is in, in Barnstable in
North Devon. Both have their, both have their
other sides. So Bristol's obviously far more
competitive. Typically in New Devon, if you
join the company, you generally stay there because you're,
you're either living there for a work life balance or you're
moving to the area for a work life balance that you, you
otherwise don't have. So again, it's quite different
and in possible this year we've actually got an employee that's
celebrating 50 years with the company.
So it's so those things are really are really, really
important for us. But again, that's where working
with you guys and, and, and the APM more broadly to make sure
that we create structure project management pathways in our
business. We align with your competency
framework and we get our educational piece right.
So that actually if we aren't recruiting senior leaders that
that have been in our space for a long time, that we're able to
support that development. Now I hope, I hope it gets
something, a good gift for being there for that long.
That's what I would say. You talk about leadership there.
So let's, let's talk about that. You, you obviously are, you
know, a distinguished leader yourself.
You've probably worked with lots of distinguished leaders.
You know, what would you, in your opinion, say is like the
one most important trait of a great project leader?
If I could push you to do 1. If I had to pick one, I I would
go with emotional intelligence. And the reason I picked that is
because that's what ties everything together.
If, if you can't understand your people, if you can't feel
trustworthy teens and you can't leave with empathy, you're
really going to struggle to, to deliver this and you're going to
really struggle to create a team that can be really well
performing. If you've got that, you can
recognise when people are struggling and, and when you
reckon that could be the difference between project
stalling and being successful. If you can see when somebody
can't necessarily see the bigger picture and you can help that,
you'll encourage different things.
So yeah, there's a, there's a lot of right answers here, but I
probably would stick with emotionally intelligence.
If you if you've got that and you're ready to kind of tie that
team together, that's that's the dinner.
Yeah, I'm, I'm actually really encouraged by that answer
because one of my kind of hobby horses, if you like, and people
who, who listen to me regularly on the podcast will know this is
I'm really pushing the kind of the people side of project
management and, and broadly speaking, the competencies fall
into kind of process and people type things.
We, we could have a debate about whether that's true.
But I, I, I, I argue that, you know, with the advent of AI and
everything else, the process side of things is probably going
to be the bit that gets eroded over time and that people side
of things, which is already important, becomes even more
important. And emotional intelligence, I
think is, is, is right up there. So I think that's a great
answer. Thank you.
Well, look, thanks very much Steve for for for joining us
and, and also to everybody who's listening or watching.
We'll be back in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, if
you've got any comments or feedback, then please do e-mail
us. You can get us at
apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk or if you're a Spotify user, you
can leave us a comment directly in the app.
So that's it for this episode and we'll see you next time.