Enterprise Development through Connected
The top event CONNECTED of the Swiss Armed Forces took place in Kloten-Zurich from 16 to 20 August 2023. armasuisse Science and Technology (S+T) also took part with a large exhibition area. In addition to communicating our wide range of expertise, the focus was also on the cooperation with partners such as the armed forces.
Marcel Stolz, project manager of CONNECTED, armasuisse Science and Technology
Thanks to the CONNECTED event, the interested public was given new insights into the world of armasuisse S+T. The exhibition area of armasuisse S+T invited the visitors to take part and to get to know each other.
CONNECTED was the largest event of its type in the last few years, with more than 90,000 visitors. For five days, visitors were able to experience up close the activities of the Swiss Armed Forces as well as various federal offices of the Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS). The topics «cyber» and «digitisation» were the focus of the exhibition. armasuisse S+T also took part as an important partner of the armed forces: On an exhibition space of around 50x30 metres – corresponding to an area of almost six tennis courts – the employees of armasuisse S+T presented their current research activities and provided an insight into their daily work.
Ad hoc project structure
For a long time, the manner in which armasuisse S+T would take part in CONNECTED was not clear. Accordingly, employees could only tackle the planning of the exhibition towards the end of 2022 – just about nine months before the top event. This posed corresponding challenges: A project structure with representatives from all specialist areas had to be established quickly and contents defined. The fact that the project management has only been employed at armasuisse S+T for a short time put additional pressure on exhibition planning. This was also linked with the opportunity to work more closely together and brought a new perspective to the development of the individual exhibition areas. The focus was on the following questions: What part of our daily work interests visitors? Why is this relevant? How does it contribute to the security of Switzerland? And to what extent does our work relate to current social topics and concerns?
Cooperation between armasuisse S+T and partners
During the brainstorming process, cooperation also took place with partners outside the competence sector S+T, as the armasuisse S+T employees work together with partners in the DDPS on a daily basis. armasuisse S+T’s largest partner is the armed forces. Other partners are, for example, the General Secretariat, as in the Mitholz project, or competence sectors within armasuisse. Thanks to this close cooperation, the joint projects IPLIS – the new command and control system for the Swiss Armed Forces – and Mitholz were also included in our exhibition. This inclusion was definitely an asset. Visitors could thus experience the interfaces between armasuisse S+T and the various partners and the interdisciplinary work was demonstrated. The relevance of armasuisse S+T’s expertise, the research and own testing activities were communicated efficiently.
Cooperation is consolidated
The close cooperation of all teams from armasuisse S+T with each other as well as with partners at the CONNECTED led to a lively exchange. More than 50 employees from armasuisse S+T, which corresponds to around one-third of the workforce, were involved in the organisation both before and during the event. This not only gave the employees a better insight into the entire breadth and depth of the field of activity of armasuisse S+T beyond the traditional structures, but external parties were also able to gain a good overview of the content. The team spirit was additionally reinforced by the get together in the evening at the shared accommodation. The intensive internal exchange over several weeks and months have created new synergies and fortified the cooperation over various different areas, as well as administrative units. In this sense CONNECTED was a huge success, not only with regard to the external impact, but also for internal cooperation – and to a certain extent also for enterprise development.
