Fact Sheet: DTC50 Commemorative Book Series "Engineering Singapore's Defence - The Early Years"

As part of the Defence Technology Community (DTC)'s 50th Anniversary, DTC published a commemorative book series, "Engineering Singapore's Defence - The Early Years". The book series documents DTC's transformative journey in strengthening Singapore's defence capabilities and its contributions to nation-building over the last 50 years. The book series will be launched by President Dr Tony Tan Keng Yam at the DTC50 Dinner held on 7 November 2016.

The four books of the series cover the entire spectrum of the DTC's work in the land, sea and air domains to deliver cutting-edge technological capabilities to the SAF. They are titled "Engineering Land Systems", "Engineering Our Navy", "Aviation Engineering" and "Engineering Systems-of-Systems". Together, they chronicle the DTC's journey and document the largely unheard stories of the scientists and engineers involved - their challenges, struggles and triumphs, their resolve and ingenuity, and their persistence in overcoming the odds. These stories provide readers with a glimpse of the "dare-to-do" and enterprising spirit that our DTC personnel and forerunners possess.

Engineering Land Systems

This book highlights the importance of logistics and engineering in the building up of the SAF over the last 50 years. The book describes the development of our technical capabilities in Singapore's defence industries to provide armament for the SAF; the challenges in the planning, design and engineering of operational infrastructure facilities for the SAF; and the life-cycle approach to delivering defence systems to the SAF, including planning to large-scale testing and collaboration with the best engineers in the world. This book also includes personal accounts from key members of the R&D team of Singapore's first driverless vehicle.

Engineering Our Navy

This book narrates the advancement of the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) from an engineering perspective. The combination of systems and engineering approach has been a powerful conceptual approach to the development of large-scale engineered and human activity systems. This approach is the force multiplier that underpins the ability of the RSN to attain capabilities. This book attempts to demonstrate this through the stories told by the engineers and scientists with the DTC and in the RSN.

Aviation Engineering

This book focuses on the build-up of Singapore's aviation experience and capabilities of the DTC, the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and ST Aerospace - that have supported Singapore's capabilities and success in aviation.

This book aims to capture and share the important and interesting aspects of the RSAF's early days and its journey to becoming a well-respected air force, and also recounts ST Aerospace's beginnings and journey to become a full-spectrum aviation engineering company with a global footprint. The book also describes how the processes and products developed can be leveraged and applied to future engineering endeavours.

Engineering Systems-of-Systems

Guided by two key constraints - manpower and geographic space - the DTC's engineers and scientists have applied systems thinking and engineering to overcoming the challenges of safeguarding Singapore's security. The system-of-systems (SoS) concept explains how individual systems are integrated to form a larger system.

In the book, two notional categories - Defence SoS and Enabling SoS - are introduced. While Defence SoS refers to the systems developed to defend Singapore, Enabling SoS is about capacity and knowledge building that has enabled Defence SoS. From the use of hardware to software, and contributions by engineering personnel, this book documents the operational lifecycle, methodologies and tools used to develop and sustain these systems. It also provides insights to how the DTC has evolved over time and what it took to build up a critical mass of engineering and scientific expertise. The book ends with a chapter with a reflection on the key success factors that had contributed to DTC's accomplishments and its journey ahead.

Editorial Team

Preparation for the book first began in May 2014 where a group of present and past members of the DTC, the SAF and Singapore Technologies companies began working on the four-book series. David Boey, a member of the Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence sub-Council (Educational Institutions) and formerly a defence correspondent with The Straits Times, also contributed to a chapter on the Armoured Fighting Vehicles.

Availability

A downloadable e-book (PDF and ePub formats) of "Engineering Land Systems" and "Engineering Our Navy" will be made available on the MINDEF website (https://www.mindef.gov.sg/) by end November. The hardcopies will be available in public libraries under National Library Board by end November as well.

The two remaining books, "Aviation Engineering" and "Engineering Systems-of-Systems" will also be made available on the MINDEF website and in public libraries by end February 2017.