Deloitte Sees Future In Smart Military Bases

To most people, the name Deloitte conjures up the image of a financial services and business consulting firm. But at the MILCOM Show in Baltimore this week, I learned that Deloitte is leveraging its expertise to another: the military.

Deloitte is advocating using more artificial intelligence in military operations, starting with smart bases, where the firm is lending its consulting services to government agencies such as the Department of Defense. According to the company, smart bases would create an intelligent framework that would digitally model and monitor all functions and activities of a military base—facilities, lifestyle provisions, security, emergency response, and energy. This framework, coupled with the use of analytics, creates a knowledge base that can alert military personnel of impending issues and recommend corrective courses of action, according to Bill Beyer, Principal, Federal Human Capital for Deloitte.

Beyer believes that because smart bases use a lot of intelligent technology, such as sensors to monitor various functions, the base can be easily scaled and adapted quickly to changing military missions. This agility is important in responding to crisis and can potentially reduce costs, as human and technological resources are allocated to areas that need them the most.

The military has traditionally been slow to adopt new technology due to many factors, such as the lengthy cycle for procurement and approvals. Nevertheless, Beyer noted that aspects of smart bases are already being phased into some military base locations, such as San Antonio and San Diego. Advanced technologies such as autonomous vehicles are in place in Camp Pendleton and Miramar.

Asides from smart bases, Deloitte is also leveraging its knowledge of software to help the military increase the use of bots, or what the company terms as software robots, to help automate administrative processes. Marc Macher, Principal, Federal Strategy and Operations for Deloitte, says the use of bots can increase worker productivity by automating time-consuming tasks; for instance, expediting the process of obtaining security clearances which when done manually can take many days. He adds that the use of bots in military agencies will not replace workers, but instead enable them to higher value tasks.