Page 40 - Australian Defence Magazine Oct 2020

40 DEFENCE IN THE NORTH SUSTAINMENT
OCTOBER 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
which has required Thales in the past to fly personnel between Darwin and Cairns to perform work. The present COVID-19 travel restrictions may have an impact on solutions such as this for at least the im- mediate future, further complicating sus- tainment activities and this is being closely monitored by the Commonwealth.
“We just don’t have spare capacity lying around, there are locational difficulties but with planning and preparation we’re able to mitigate most of those. The real chal- lenge comes with an urgent defect – an unplanned maintenance activity – where we have to react quickly and fly people in, and that’s obviously more expensive than pre-emptive or planned maintenance,” Hopkins detailed.
“There are challenges, but the ISS
contractors are addressing those in their
various workforce plans. In the time that Thales has been the incumbent ISS contractor for the Armidale Class boats for example, there has been notable increases in the extant workforce in Darwin that they’ve been able to use through established arrangements with subcontractors.”
In recent times, contractors have stepped up during their Christmas break to support Navy’s requirements which Hopkins says is a good indication of the close link between Defence and industry at the present time.
will be the sustainment of the E-Cape fleet which will actu- ally be the proof of concept.
FUTURE SUSTAINMENT UNDER PLAN GALILEO
Plan Galileo will change the way Navy sustains its future fleet, transitioning from the current model of individual sustainment methodology for each class to an integrated ap- proach, which will see the establishment of Regional Mainte- nance Centres (RMCs) in select locations across the country.
The RMCs will be the incentive for defence industry to grow local capability, with the promise of regular work for home- ported vessels of any class – and even visiting Australian fleets units and potentially those of regional neighbours and allies.
The idea is to leverage the best practices and lessons learned across the spectrum of Navy’s current surface fleet sustainment activities, minimising duplication of effort and driving commonality. A further key initiative is to drive the growth of Australian Industry Capability (AIC) around the RMCs which, in the patrol boat sphere, will include Dar- win, Cairns and possibly Henderson in Western Australia.
“E-Cape support will leverage the close relationship be- tween the Patrol Boat SPO, the OPV sustainment team and industry on how we roll out the new model of sustainment under Galileo. By virtue of the E-Capes coming on-line ear- lier than OPVs, it will be good precursor of how we will also do it in WA with the OPVs,” Hopkins explained to ADM.
“The patrol boats are the key operational output for north- west Australia under Operations Sovereign Borders and Resolute, they’re on-station 24/7 every day of the year. Ac- cordingly, the maintenance and support response needs to provide support for that. We are very pleased that industry has responded to the tempo and we’ve even hit a point where we’re at historically low levels of remaining urgent defects.
“On a number of occasions during the year we’ve had pa- trol boats with no urgent defects and that was unheard of three years ago.”
ABOVE: Seaman Marine Technician Damien Esparon in the main engine room onboard HMAS Maryborough.
“ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS DURING THE YEAR WE’VE HAD PATROL BOATS WITH NO URGENT DEFECTS AND THAT WAS UNHEARD OF THREE YEARS AGO.”
“The Commonwealth has worked very hard to improve relationships and the key part is the way we work closely with the contractors. It’s a team effort and in Darwin for example, the con- tractor works in the same building as us,” Hopkins said. “The industry re- sponse has been superb, and it paves the way forward for the future.”
TRANSITION TO ARAFURA
Under the current plan, the first Ar-
midale boat will be decommissioned in the middle of next year, commensurate with the first E- Cape vessel being delivered in August and becoming opera- tional in September 2021. The E-Capes will be delivered by Austal to a four-month drumbeat, allowing the Armidale fleet to progressively draw down, with the final vessel arriv- ing in May 2023 and entering service in July. A transition plan to manage operational availability during this period has been developed and covers decommissioning of Armi- dales, the commencement of CCPB decommissioning and
introduction of the OPV fleet,
“The idea is to maintain a minimum number of hulls to
meet operational requirements at all times and we have a good degree of confidence that we can maintain the opera- tional requirements for the patrol boat fleet,” Hopkins said.
From a sustainment perspective, while the introduction of the Arafura OPVs will be the first real test of the new way of providing support under Navy’s Plan Galileo, it
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