Page 36 - Australian Defence Magazine April 2020

36 SEA POWER HOBART CLASS
APRIL 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
Systems Design contract that was to be managed on a day-to- day basis by ASC and Raytheon.
As noted later by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), the non-inclusion of Navantia subsequently de- tracted from the Alliance’s ability, from design conception through to shipbuilding and ship acceptance, to collectively and collaboratively manage risk, share best practices, and reduce cost.
The challenges inherent in a program where the ship de- signer had not previously exported a design for construction and the shipbuilder had never built a surface ship became apparent soon after construction started in April 2010.
“What caused the program to come off cost and sched- ule was a combination of everything – dimensional con- trol, poor sequencing, system understanding and quality, configuration management and documentation, poor com- mercial practice,” commented Commodore Craig Bourke, a long-serving AWD director for the Capability and Sustain- ment Group (CASG) which replaced the disbanded DMO in June 2015.
“A new workforce, an unfamiliar design, new skills that didn’t exist, a new location, new commercial arrangements, what could go wrong?” he asked rhetorically.
A critical report by former US Navy Secretary Don Win- ter and industrialist John White, a former head of the
Anzac-class frigate program, not only triggered the urgent injection of expertise into ASC from Navantia and Ray- theon in 2015 but also saw the AWD enterprise designated a Project of Concern, automatically triggering intensified government oversight.
ON THE WAY UP
Ensuing reforms saw productivity on Ship 2 improve by 38 per cent on Ship 1 and, according to Minister Reynolds, rise by a further 36 per cent from Ship 2 to Ship 3. The AWD
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