Page 37 - Australian Defence Magazine Oct 2020

OCTOBER 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
DEFENCE IN THE NORTH SUSTAINMENT 37
at its Henderson facility and the contract was announced by the Federal Government on May 1, 2020.
“We had planned to undertake a Life of Type Extension (LOTE) program for the Armidales, but we received an unsolicited proposal from Austal in September last year,” Hopkins explained to ADM. “They proposed to the Com- monwealth that six new E-Cape vessels would be far more effective, from both an operational and cost perspective, than to maintain the whole fleet of Armidales out to the delivery of the first OPVs in 2022.”
CURRENT SUSTAINMENT WORKSCOPE
Overseen by the Patrol Boat SPO in Darwin, the Armidale and Cape Class vessels are each sustained by a Defence industry In- Service Support (ISS) provider, together with a number of sup- porting companies. Thales Australia has been the incumbent Armidale ISS provider since being awarded the contract in De- cember 2016 and maintains vessels in both Darwin and Cairns. The Cape Class ISS is Austal, which looks after the two vessels homeported in Cairns as well as the ABF’s fleet of vessels.
Both ISS companies are contracted through the Com- monwealth’s latest ASDEFCON template structure, where- by the sustainment providers operate under a ‘no win, no loss’ methodology designed to enhance the relationship be- tween Defence and industry and provide the best outcome for the customer.
“The older contracting methodology was punitive, where- by the ISS would be abated if performance did not reach agreed levels. That proved problematic with the previous Armidale ISS contractor and it became a downward spiral – they did not perform and hence they were abated, which meant they were not remunerated and therefore did not have the money to achieve everything they needed to achieve. Hence, they did not maintain the boats adequately and we did not get the availability we required,” Hopkins said.
“The new suite of contracts has had the opposite effect, while they may cost more the availability of the fleet is sig- nificantly superior and we now regularly have no boats in unplanned, or corrective, maintenance. We now experience urgent defects (URDEFs, which stop the boat from being used) less frequently. The turnaround from Austal and Thales is very quick and hence the availability and material confidence in the boats is much better than before. That’s principally because of a better contract structure, but it is also a better way of working with the ISS contractors.”
Austal is also the ISS contractor for the ABF’s Cape Class patrol boats, but while there are synergies between the two fleets, they are maintained under separate contracts.
ABOVE: The Armidale fleet are spending more time at sea than ever before.
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