Page 64 - Australian Defence Magazine Aug 2019

FROM THE SOURCE
JOHN DAVIS
“I personally don't agree with much of the conversation saying that suddenly the ocean is going to be transparent and the day of manned submarines has gone.”
Continued from page 63
describe these different skills. This allows the workforce demand data to be integrated to build a complete picture.
In terms of the training materials, we’re also sharing our IP to say ‘For us an underwa- ter basket weaver looks like this and has these competencies’, and comparing that with frig- ate builder BAE Systems Australia. We’re also bringing forward our own corporate training needs analysis and putting that into
sign and the delivery of that system is one of the key roles for NSC. Industry sits on the NSC governance board and we help direct the flow of priorities and actions which are passed to NSC for them to go and prosecute.
As an aside, when you have a look at what has been achieved through indus- trial collaboration on workforce, there is opportunity to get that same sort of para-
digm in other areas of the enterprise as well, but for work- force it’s growing I think quite well.
With respect to workforce ex- perience, Naval Group has a frame of reference which suggests that typi- cally for program success you need
about 30 per cent of the workforce to have the requisite experience to drive the program and deliver outcomes, and that’s quite a large number.
The work we’re doing now is looking at how do we grow that experience pool in Australia, noting that the last Collins fin- ished in 2001. It’s been a long time since we built a submarine in Australia.
ADM: Is there an agreement not to poach from ASC to make sure that Col- lins can retain its capability while we go through that transition between classes? DAVIS: For the Collins sustainment, we’ve agreed with ASC that we won’t draw re- sources from there. Now obviously there will be times when people choose to leave but we don’t actively seek to recruit from ASC.
ADM: As part of Collins LOTE discus- sions, is there scope for the LOTE to act as a test bed for Future Submarine? Is that actively being worked?
DAVIS: Yes. We signed a framework agreement with ASC in March which has several core pillars, ranging from the tacti- cal through to strategic levels. At a tactical level we’re working with ASC to look at ways to build the health and safety culture within a new submarine construction yard. ASC have been through a very long journey to get there and they’ve got there; they have a great yard now.
At the strategic level we’re looking more broadly at how we can collaborate with ASC and what that means.
ADM: There’s been talk, particularly at the Submarine Institute of Australia (SIA) conferences about the transition between the Oberon and Collins class that it was a
French President Emmanuel Macron at the launch of the Suffren last month.
the pool to work out what good looks like. Taken as a whole, there’s a real marked change in the level of industrial col- laboration which is occurring to resolve the skills problem, without Defence prompting, that’s really what we have been doing as industry to help drive to-
wards a system solution.
The challenge in terms of doing the de-
64 | August 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au
NAVAL GROUP