Why Military Software Needs a New Take on Common Building Blocks

This piece reflects personal practice and research in software factories and military informationization, offering a subjective yet analytical view on how Common Building Blocks (CBB) can be built and deployed in the defense sector.

Why the military sector must rethink CBB

In software engineering, CBB is not new; component‑based development, reuse, micro‑services, and platformization all aim to reduce duplicated effort and improve delivery efficiency and consistency. In defense, the challenge intensifies because systems such as simulators, command‑and‑control, situational‑awareness, and digital twins are traditionally project‑based, highly customized, and subject to stringent reliability and security requirements.

Complexity in military systems often stems not from algorithms but from three core aspects:

Whether core concepts—system objects, equipment elements, combat units—are abstracted uniformly.

Whether business processes, state changes, and constraint rules are engineered and solidified.

Whether development, delivery, and evolution practices follow a stable, repeatable model.

These aspects are precisely what CBB should capture and reuse. Without systematic CBB construction, development cycles repeatedly “reinvent the wheel” and re‑interpret business logic.

CBB in the defense context is more than code components

It is crucial to distinguish military CBB from generic software libraries. A more accurate definition is:

Military CBB is a set of engineered, boundary‑defined, and usage‑standardized public capability units that can be reused across multiple projects and platforms.

From a practical view, such capabilities may appear as code, models, rules, processes, or methodologies, and can be grouped into three layers.

Layer 1 – Business & Domain Layer (unit‑driven)

This layer sits closest to actual combat and engineering applications, embodying accumulated domain knowledge and experience.

Unified modeling of equipment objects, system units, and combat elements.

Typical business flows and state machines in command, simulation, and situational‑awareness systems.

Algorithm models and rule libraries tightly tied to specific platforms or specialties.

Characteristics: strong dependence on business understanding and on‑site scenarios; tightly linked to intellectual property, security boundaries, and confidentiality. Consequently, responsibility for this layer naturally rests with the defense units themselves, while external parties can only provide tooling or methodological support.

Layer 2 – Technical Capability Layer (team‑driven)

This layer abstracts reusable technical abilities that development teams need when building various defense software systems.

Communication and messaging mechanisms for inter‑system coordination.

Scheduling, time‑management, and synchronization frameworks for complex system runtimes.

General middleware capabilities such as logging, configuration, monitoring, and access control.

Construction is driven by development teams—whether internal or external—who must consciously separate one‑off implementations from long‑term reusable capabilities, define clear boundaries during design, and provide standardized interfaces, documentation, and tests.

Layer 3 – Engineering & Tooling Layer (platform‑driven)

This layer is the most amenable to standardization and large‑scale provision by software‑factory platform providers.

Standardized development process templates and pipelines.

Common engineering capabilities such as security scanning, quality metrics, and compliance checks.

Artifact, component, and release management tools.

Platform providers can leverage their DevSecOps and software‑factory expertise to deliver mature, deployable capability sets, while defense units focus on defining governance rules and embedding them into tool usage.

CBB Management Platform – From Repository to Governance Hub

As the number of CBBs grows, questions arise: Which components are stable? Which are still experimental? Which are widely depended upon and must not be changed arbitrarily?

Managing CBBs merely as code repositories or file shares fails to provide visibility. A dedicated internal CBB management platform should act as a governance hub, handling registration, approval, distribution, and usage tracking—effectively an “internal app marketplace.”

This shift enables teams to request components through formal processes, while the platform records dependencies, version constraints, and usage statistics, allowing the organization to answer critical questions about reuse, impact of quality issues, and investment priorities.

Treating CBB Development as Product Development

Often CBBs emerge unintentionally as “by‑products” of projects. Without explicit engineering constraints, responsibilities become unclear, versioning drifts, and divergent modifications erode reuse value.

Key product‑oriented practices include:

Assigning independent demand sources and iteration plans to CBBs.

Defining clear code boundaries and branching strategies to preserve generality.

Automating builds, tests, and security scans to continuously validate usability and reliability.

Software‑factory and DevSecOps toolchains act as amplifiers, turning ad‑hoc, experience‑driven practices into repeatable, sustainable organizational capabilities.

Industry‑Level CBB Collaboration – Bounded Sharing

Beyond a single organization, industry‑wide CBB ecosystems are possible when confidentiality and security boundaries are respected. Different sectors (aerospace, naval, automotive, etc.) can share common engineering methods, validated foundational capability models, and non‑sensitive tools and processes within a consortium or corporate group.

Such shared CBBs become assets not only for individual units but also for elevating overall industry capability.

Conclusion – CBB as a Long‑Term Engineering Endeavor

CBB construction is not a one‑off project but a systemic, long‑running effort intertwined with software‑factory operations. It transcends pure technical challenges, requiring clear organizational responsibilities, disciplined engineering methods, and platform support to become a sustainable foundation for evolving defense software systems.