Page 38 - Australian Defence Magazine Oct 2020

38 DEFENCE IN THE NORTH SUSTAINMENT
OCTOBER 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
“We have a good working relationship with ABF and for example, there is an engineer working group which shares defect information and other issues and we do share re- sources where we can,” Hopkins added.
“While there is no formal agreement in place, we monitor each other’s relationship with the ISS and provide guidance and comment on issues which might arise, if requested by the other party.”
“The old contract was based upon the provision of a num- ber of days the boats were available, the new contracts how- ever have more granularity and inventory is one of them,” Hopkins said.
“The genesis of this is the contractual requirements that annual work programs are to be provided in advance, and therefore Austal and Thales have work identified which enables them to develop an inventory management plan to support that work.”
While the ISS providers manage the inventory, the Com- monwealth has overwatch of it and can direct the compa- nies to additionally procure insurance items - which might either have a long lead time or, in the case of propellers or propeller shafts, which may unexpectedly suffer damage during operations.
The closer relationship between the Commonwealth and the ISS providers has also manifested itself in opportunities to perform preventative or predictive maintenance, rather than waiting for a component or system to fail in service and potentially cause delays or mission failures.
An example of this is Thales’ submission to the Patrol Boat SPO to replace the Reverse Osmosis (RO) units on the Armidale boats on a regular schedule which, rather than relying on the traditional ‘break down and fix’ way of think- ing, has anecdotally increased cost-effectiveness by a factor of four. Under the new system, inventory control of the RO units is more predictable, as is the availability of skilled labour to effect replacement.
CHALLENGES
Both Darwin and Cairns are relatively remote tropical areas, and each presents its challenges for sustainment of the patrol boat fleets. Both have a finite amount of both capacity and local resources, which from time to time require particular skills or equipment to be flown in. An example of this is the relatively few numbers of accredited copper-nickel welders,
BELOW: Thales have been working on Armidale support since the end of 2016.
“AUSTAL IS ALSO THE ISS
A further change to the way the ACPB fleet is sustained is in the as- surance space, where contracts are now directly between the support
CONTRACTOR FOR THE service providers and the Com-
ABF’S CAPE CLASS PATROL BOATS, BUT WHILE THERE ARE SYNERGIES BETWEEN
monwealth. Det Norske Veritas and Germanischer Lloyd (DNV GL) per- forms the Classification Society role in both Darwin and Cairns, which
THE TWO FLEETS, THEY provides an independent means of
ARE MAINTAINED UNDER SEPARATE CONTRACTS.”
establishing and maintaining tech- nical standards of ship construc- tion and operation. A rolling series of hull surveys is contracted to the Naval Architect firm G.A. Glanville
& Co. and this work is also performed in both Darwin and Cairns on behalf of the Commonwealth.
“Both patrol boat types are of aluminium construction, which makes them lighter but the disadvantage is that, from a maintenance point of view, we have to be ahead of the game with regard to corrosion and cracking. Hence the whole survey program has paid dividends because, gener- ally speaking, we’re finding no surprises of note with the ageing Armidale fleet,” Hopkins explained to ADM.
“The two separate, Commonwealth-managed contracts en- sure we have the visibility of problems and unfettered advice as to the material condition of the hulls of both classes of boats.”
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
One of the key performance indicators of the news ISS con- tracts is one of inventory management, which is largely the responsibility of the two major service providers.
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