Defence Business Issue 41

TEAM AUSTRALIA
14 November/December 2017/January 2018 Defence Business
The Future Submarine acquisition process
By Philip Smart
The Future Submarine acquisition process will prioritise Australian sovereignty
and support local industry, but no one expects that every submarine component will be
made in Australia.
So said Defence Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG) General
Manager Submarines, Rear Admiral Steve Johnson (US Navy, Retired), in his address
on day one of the Submarine Institute of Australia’s (SIA) fourth Submarine Science,
Technology and Engineering Conference (SubSTEC4), held in Adelaide in November.
Presenting as a keynote speaker, Johnson detailed the steps taken and
strategy of establishing an enduring Australian industrial base and emphasised the
Commonwealth’s intent to maximise local industry content.
“There will be some items that we just never build here,” Johnson told the
Adelaide audience. “A practical example is the main motors; unlikely to be built here
because they’re so hard to do and we need 13 over 40 years. It’s just not viable.
“There will be components that we build overseas, but remember the strategy
of sovereignty is that with each and every request for proposal and each and every
contract that we let, the requirements for sovereignty are embedded. And so in that
example of the main motor, it will be integrated here, tested here, installed here,
sustained here.”
Johnson said the Future Submarine experience would differ from Collins,
including a “strategically longer interval to get all the lessons learned” from building
the first submarine before going in to production for the remaining 11. And although
the approach to every major component and system will be on a case by case basis, the
acquisition process will maximise opportunities for local industry and include incentives
to support the supply chain.
“It will be a combination of things that we do with each contract on each
subject,” Johnson said. “We’ll either start them early, allow an early delivery date,
just standard business bridging techniques. I highlighted that to make sure that the
small and medium enterprise representatives in the room understood from the very
beginning that we know that we have to manage the industrial base.”
Opened by Federal Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne, the
three-day conference provided a snapshot of strategies for both building Australia’s
Future Submarine and maintaining the Collins Class. It saw delegates from Defence,
industry and government presenting on maintaining sovereignty, building a submarine
construction workforce, training, specialist technologies, submarine safety and the
process Naval Group Australia will use to design the Future Submarine.
“We have nearly 300 delegates from around the world, from the UK, France,
America, as well as Australia,” said SIA secretary Frank Owen during the conference.
“It’s been a cross section from all sorts of industries, academia and defence; we’ve had
the political as well as the technical.”
Along with sovereignty, the major themes of this year’s conference were
highlighted as developing the future naval shipbuilding workforce and planning already
underway for a Life Of Type Extension (LOTE) for several of the current Collins Class
submarine fleet to secure the force’s strategic role until new submarines are in service.
Head of Workforce Development for the Australian Industry Group, Megan
Lilly, said ramping up a workforce for the Future Submarine and naval shipbuilding
programs was a double-barrel challenge.
“What we’re talking about here is a challenge of simultaneously building both
the capability and the capacity of the workforce around defence industries,” Lilly
said. “Often we have to focus on one or the other, but rarely do we focus on both
simultaneously and in the volume that we’re going to.”
She pointed to projects such as Adelaide’s coming Naval Shipbuilding College,
set to begin training key entry-level trades and later higher education qualifications
such as naval architecture and engineering, as an example of the infrastructure
required.
“The significant thing about the Naval Shipbuilding College is that it is a
deliberate intervention strategy to actually try and address what is foreseen as the
problem of supply and demand matching around skills required for shipbuilding and
sustainment over the whole journey. And it is an attempt to try and build that capability
and capacity.”
Day one of the conference also saw CASG’s Director of the Collins Class
Submarine Program, Brad Hajek, detail work on the proposed Life of Type Extension
(LOTE) for Collins.
As a measure of how submarine construction and support has become part of
the Australian defence industry ecosystem, CASG’s initial Collins LOTE questionnaire
sought the views of 156 companies involved in design, manufacture or repair of
systems and components.
From the scoping exercise Defence has identified 122 “significant activities” to
be refined as part of a scoping project, including upgrades, procurement and technical
What we’re talking about here
is a challenge of simultaneously
building both the capability and
the capacity of the workforce
around defence industries. Often
we have to focus on one or the
other, but rarely do we focus on
both simultaneously and in the
volume that we’re going to.”
studies. Half the identified activities would centre on the Collins’ hull, mechanical and
electrical systems, while 21 relate to its stealth ability and “signature”, the emissions an
adversary might use to locate and track the submarine, 14 to its combat system and 12
to the main propulsion system.
For planning purposes the team has proposed life of type extensions for HMAS
Farncomb, HMAS Collins and HMAS Waller. Each would take around two years,
followed by another decade in service for each submarine with HMAS Waller the last to
leave service in 2042.
“Scoping studies informed the requirements necessary to safeguard against age
related degradation and deterioration of the hull and platform systems and determine
activities required to ensure the submarines remain effective,” Hajek said. “The
scoping studies also assisted in determining aspects of normal business of sustaining
the submarine fleet, which covers off on the plans for corrective maintenance and the
support systems necessary to achieve the planning for all this.”
For Frank Owen, the robust debate on so many subjects was validation for the
conference itself.
“The Institute promotes informed discussion, so these conferences play a
big part in informing a range of stakeholders, including those that might have their
position and assume they’re informed, but may take on a different perspective when
they hear from others,” he said.