William McCormick
Greg Bowman, chief innovation officer & vice president of Corporate Development with Siemens Government Technologies, recently spoke with ExecutiveBiz regarding his insights on the critical importance of zero-trust standards, end-to-end product traceability and the talent recruitment challenges in the federal marketplace during the latest Executive Spotlight interview.
“Digital transformation is by any measure more affordable, effective, and essential than ever before. From manufactures and service providers to government agencies and cutting-edge innovators, the time is now to embrace this incredible technology.
Such enterprise-level transformation needs a comprehensive roadmap that is focused both internally and externally to a company or a government agency. It is about having an open architecture that can integrate with a myriad of systems, whether legacy or future systems, and function across multiple digital platforms. The potential savings in time, costs, and even carbon, as well as the creation of a more resilient supply chain cannot be overstated.”
You can read the full interview with Greg Bowman below:
ExecutiveBiz: With the influence of emerging technologies impacting every aspect of business, how has your company been able to drive digital transformation efforts to stay ahead of innovation in the federal landscape for yourself and your customers?
Greg Bowman: “Siemens Government Technologies is laser focused on solutions for our Federal partners using the latest innovations from the entire Siemens global portfolio to solve some of the most complex and critical national security, economic and sustainability problems facing the United States today.
Siemens is a top digital technology company. From our industry-leading digital industry software and factory automation teams to our smart infrastructure and semiconductor EDA groups, Siemens is leading digital transformation across multiple discrete and process verticals around the federal and commercial markets.
We offer the government and industry to collaborate and innovate rapidly and accurately in system development. From the beginning of an idea and development of a prototype to the large-scale acquisition and long-term life cycle management, digitalization allows the government and industry to make things rapidly, more affordable, and more transparently.
They need the ability to work with each other from a single set of facts, data, drawings and ’a single source of truth.’ With unpredictable future threats, we need to have maximum preparedness and speed. Good ideas and innovations can come from anywhere in industry or government, so the ability for them to work together and innovate off the same platform is key.”
ExecutiveBiz: With “zero-trust” and end-to-end product/component traceability becoming a major focal point moving forward, what can you tell us about what Siemens Government is doing to support Federal and A&D partners in this area?
Greg Bowman: “On the commercial side, we have developed a ‘Trusted Traceability’ offering, using distributed ledger technology, that helps our customers trace the digital provenance of their raw materials, parts, and products all of the way to the end-user. This commercial application can also support our federal partners as well.
This innovation was born in our food and beverage vertical. For safety and quality, food and beverage producers need to be able track their products from the farm to the consumer across the globe.
For example, a coffee company can use our system to trace coffee beans from the time they’re picked through processing, warehousing, and shipping, until it reaches a coffee mug. The same is true for semiconductor provenance. A semiconductor can be traced all the way until it is inserted into an end-item. This is incredibly important for security purposes.
Another example, where this digital innovation may have application, would be in parts obsolescence, which is a constant issue faced by our Federal partners. When they need an obsolete part, which must be made from a non-OEM partner, trusted traceability would allow them to digitally verify the quality and security of the part.”
ExecutiveBiz: How does your company ensure long term success for your workforce to drive value for your employees as you continue to face the uphill challenge to recruit and retain the best talent in the federal marketplace?
Greg Bowman: “The greatest asset of Siemens Government Technologies is our people. We have a very strong team. They have this extraordinary ability to develop innovative solutions by using the entire breadth of the Siemens global portfolio.
This is as exciting for our senior personnel as it is for our newest engineer. Imagine being able to work on the latest global technology and use it to solve a critical problem for our nation. That is powerful.
We’re at the very top of the industry in almost every aspect of our work from software and automation to clean energy and cyber security. For example, Siemens has a multi-disciplinary team working with the U.S. Navy to create the largest digital twin of an industrial facility in history, as part of the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program.
The Navy’s four public shipyards will have a complete digital twin of each facility and appropriate processes in order to optimize operations. This will help get their ships out of maintenance faster and back into the fight. That’s a major project for us and a very exciting opportunity for our teams.
Siemens is also working on the largest energy savings performance contract in the history of our government, which includes complete energy upgrades from battery storage and solar to the first large scale, base-level, use of liquified natural gas by DoD. Siemens wants to ensure that our people get to work on exciting, historic, and meaningful projects.
We’re just like every other organization in this sector, we need great leaders, business experts, project managers, engineers, administrators, and a whole host of other visionary innovators. We’re very excited about recruiting the very best because our business is growing so rapidly, and we are honored that teammates stay with Siemens because of the exciting work we get to do.”
