Page 44 - Australian Defence Magazine Sep 2021

44 SUSTAINMENT AND MRO
SEPTEMBER 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
RETHINKING THE SHIP SUSTAINMENT UNIVERSE
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
Navy’s new model for surface fleet sustainment is leveraging the work of 16th-century Italian physicist and engineer Galileo for inspiration, in a major rethink of the way upkeep and maintenance is undertaken.
KNOWN as the father of observational astronomy, Galileo championed the notion that the Earth rotated around the Sun, a theory contrary to the accepted wisdom of the day. In a 21st-century parallel, Navy’s Plan Galileo is transitioning sustainment of the surface fleet from current methodology, which supports each class of ship individually and often regards sustainment as itself the primary objective, to an integrated approach with capa- bility as the ultimate goal.
The work is being undertaken by CASG’s Maritime Sys- tems Division, currently led by Rear Admiral Wendy Mal- colm, and also takes into account the government’s Na- tional Naval Shipbuilding Plan and Navy’s current Plans Pelorus and Mercator, which deal with Navy strategy and the Naval Engineering Strategic Plan respectively.
GALILEO EXPLAINED
While older classes of surface ships, such as the Armidale class patrol boats will continue to be sustained under their existing (and bespoke) models, Plan Galileo is intended to be the model for all recently-introduced or future ships, be- ginning with the Arafura class OPVs.
The Arafura OPVs will spearhead the new strategy, which is expected to develop a national, integrated sustainment envi- ronment by 2025. Key principles of Galileo include a ‘cradle to grave’ lifecycle approach to capability and the establishment of a number of Regional Maintenance Centres (RMC), locat- ed in Cairns, Darwin, Henderson and Sydney, each with the infrastructure and industrial eco-system to support the fleet.
The concept is one of building synergies across sustainment capability, minimising the duplication of effort that often oc-
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