RAAF Air Operations Centre

In 2011 I wrote about the design of Australian Defence Command and Control Centers. This was illustrated with images of the Defence Signals Directorate Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), opened in January 2010 and depicted staffed by civilians.

The other photo was of personnel in ADF uniforms in the "Air Operations Centre in Canberra". 

There is more on the room in "Taking Command", by Joris Janssen Lok (Aviation Week, 25 June 2007).

Design of Australian Defence Command and Control Centers

The November 2011 edition of "Australian Defence Magazine" (ADM) has several articles on the Australian Defence Department project JP 2030 (Joint Command Support Environment) and issues of cyber security. Most interesting are "JP2030 Reaches Its Next Stage" (Gregor Ferguson, Page 40) and "The Extent of the Cyber Security Threat" (John Hilvert, page 60), "The Roles of Defence and Government in Cyber Security" (John Hilvert).
These articles are accompanied by photos of two operations centers. One is the Defence Signals Directorate Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), opened in January 2010. This has operators in civilian clothing sitting in a typical operations centre room layout.

The other photos in ADM show personnel in ADF uniforms in what appears to be a room with an identical layout and furniture, but with different desktop computers, telephones and wall screens. This appears to be the same room captioned "Air Operations Centre in Canberra" by RAAF News.


As discussed previously, the design of the room does not appear optimal for space utilization or group work. The desks, at 800 mm, are deeper than needed (smaller desks could double the room capacity). The use of two screens per workstation creates a situation where the operator has to look either to the left or right, not straight ahead. There are only limited gaps between the screens cutting the operators off from those in front and behind. Also the desk rows are straight, reducing the ability of the operators to see others. Narrower semicircular rows of desks would provide a better result. These could be fabricated simply (height adjustment is not used in such centres, as is evident from the photographs). Also it might be better to provide each operator with just one large monitor (up to 30 inch).

Many of the same problems are evident in the design of the ADF Special Operations Command and Control Center in Afghanistan, as depicted in the Channel Ten documentary "First Look: Tour of Duty - Australia's Secret War" (at 58 seconds into the video). This has four rows of desks, in two columns, with a walkway down the middle, and three projection screens on the front wall. Standard office desks appear to be being used, which are not optimal for such a facility, where space is at a premium.

Anti Slip Treatment for Tile Floors

Worried about slipping on the bathroom floor, I purchased a 1 Litre bottle of "DTA Domestic Anti Slip" at Bunnings Hardware (about $40, made by DTA).

This is not a coating for the tiles, but an acid which etches the tile to make it rough (as used to etch glass). The bottle comes with numerous safety warnings. I found a broom, with plastic bristles and a long handle, an effective way to apply the acid (along with rubber gloves and eye protection). Realising that I would not walk right up against the walls, I left a strip about 5 cm wide untreated around the walls, to avoid splashing the liquid on the walls.

The bottle says it will treat up to 9 square metres, but I found there was about half a bottle left after finishing the bathroom, so I also treated the kitchen floor and half the balcony. In total the one litre treated about 14 square metres of tiles.

The treated tiles have a slightly satin finish, compared to the glossier untreated tiles. However, the effect is not readily apparent and quite pleasing. While etching the floor tiles, the treatment had no apparent effect on the chrome metal drains in the floor, paintwork, grout or wall tiles (it did not even kill the mould in the shower recess).

To test the surfaces, I washed the floor with suds from the washing machine, which usually leaves the tiles too slippery to walk on. The treated tiles were no longer slippery and were safe to walk on. Assuming the tiles are really etched, the treatment should be long lasting. However, I will need to see what happens when the floor gets dirty.

According to DTA the product contains Fluoride.

Slippery tiles may seem a trivial topic, but slips and falls cost about half a billion dollars per year in Australia in hospital treatment.

Design of the Cyber Security Operations Centre

The public opening of the Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) at the Defence Signals Directorate provides a rare insight into the design of an Australian military operations centre. The Minister for Defence announced the centre would have a staff of 51 to 130.

The Defence Department provided photographs of the minister in the centre and more general views of the centre. One photo shows a close-up of an operator at a console. There are three wide format Dell monitors, each of about 24 Inches. The monitors are simply placed on the desktop using their supplied stands (no multi-monitor mounting is used). A standard keyboard and mouse are used. A Cisco Unified IP Phone (7970G or similar) digital telephone handset is located alongside the screens. In the background is a large video wall screen with two smaller flat screen displays and LED world clocks. There is a railing showing a balcony and second level with a glass wall and door (presumably offices).

A wider view shows what appears to be a projection wall screen with images from two projectors side by side, showing computer displays. Underneath are the two flat panel wide screens showing BBC World News. The flat panels have four LED world clocks to there left.

The design of the room appears symmetrical, with a central walkway about 1.2 m wide. Individual rectangular adjustable height office desks 1600 x 800 mm are used. Three rows of desks are visible, with three desks in each row, about 1200 mm between the rows. There is one operator, with two screens (some three screens) and a phone per desk. Free standing drawer units are under some desks. The back of the room shows a built in semicircular desk with two monitors.

Assuming the room is symmetrical, it would have 19 operator workstations. The room is about 13 m wide and 10 m deep, with a double height ceiling of about 6 m. This provides a generous 7 square metres per operator.

Clearly 51 staff could not fit in this area. Assuming that the visible area is surrounded by standard offices on two levels of three sides, that would provide an additional 440 square metres of space. This would provide a reasonable 11 square metres of space per staff member, for 51 staff.

The design of the room does not appear optimal for space utilisation or group work. The desks, at 800 mm, are deeper than needed (smaller desks could double the room capacity). The use of two screens per workstation creates a situation where the operator has to look either to the left or right, not straight ahead. There are only limited gaps between the screens cutting the operators off from those in front and behind. Also the desk rows are straight, reducing the ability of the operators to see others. Narrower semicircular rows of desks would provide a better result. These could be fabricated simply (height adjustment is not used in such centres, as is evident from the photographs). Also it might be better to provide each operator with just one large monitor (up to 30 inch).

E2 Ethos Shelving System

The E2 Ethos Shelf System is on special at Bunnings Hardware. This is a very elegant system using cast aluminium channels attached to the wall, into which slot cast aluminium brackets. Apart from the screw holes to hold the channels to the wall there are no other holes or protrusions in the channels (unlike most modular shelving systems). Each cast aluminium bracket is held by a grub screw tightened with the included Allen key. The shelf brackets have a cast curved support framework. The whole effect is reminiscent of an art deco 1930s train carriage luggage rack.

After purchasing their 1100 mm four shelf pack, it quickly became apparent why these are on special. The system of attaching the shelves to the channels requires close tolerances in the manufacture to allow the brackets to slide up and down for adjustment, but be sufficiently tight so they can be locked in place. Unfortunately half the brackets did not fit in the channel as they were not correctly cast had excessive metal. This required a laborious process of filing down each bracket until it fitted. Also the screw holes for holding the channel to the wall are not sufficiently recessed (a design flaw) so if the screws are not precisely aligned they stop the brackets from sliding past.

After a few hours of filing and of unscrewing and re-screwing, the results look good in a 1930s inner Sydney art deco style kitchen. But it would have been a lot easier to use one of the much less elegant, but more forgiving, modern steel shelving systems.

The E2 Ethos web site seems to suffer similar problems to their shelving system: it looks elegant but is very difficult to use. The home page provides a menu bar and an animation of shelves moving up and down. The only other content on the page is the number "01908 216466". Placing the mouse over "Storage" in the menu displayed a list of items. I couldn't read the items as the text was overlapping. Clicking on the menu items produced no apparent result.

Normally with a poorly designed web page I select "View > Page Style > No Style" so I can see a version of the page without the faulty formatting. In this case that did not work. I could try displaying the source code of the page and try to work out what was going on, but this would be a laborious process, like fining bits off the shelf brackets. As it is the web page provided me with no useful information, apart from confirming the company made shelves which can be adjusted up and down.