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Subject: Oh what a surprise, another Collins cock-up
Aussiegunneragain    10/21/2009 8:18:39 AM
Faulkner orders review into Collins class submarine fleet

UPDATED: Patrick Walters, National security editor | October 21, 2009
Article from: The Australian
DEFENCE Minister John Faulkner has ordered a review into the operational availability of the RAN's Collins class submarines, conceding that technical issues affecting their performance are a major concern for the government.

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Collins class sub fleet faulty
The Collins class submarine fleet could be pulled out of action after faults were uncovered.
Views today: 260Sorry, this video is no longer available.Senator Faulkner told a parliamentary committee hearing earlier today that he had directed the Defence Materiel Organisation to review all aspects of the availability of the Collins class for sea duties.

"Submarine platform availability remains a major concern," Senator Faulkner said.

"Submarines are a critical component of the ADF?s force structure and they perform a wide range of tasks. The government places a very high priority on ensuring that this capability is effective."

Senator Faulkner said he would not comment in the detailed operational availability of the Collins boats for security reasons.

But he said the DMO review had already recommended some significant organisational changes which were now being implemented, including increased DMO management oversight and scheduling input at ASC in Adelaide, and improved logistic support for both operational submarines and those in long-term maintenance.

The Navy will also place senior personnel in Adelaide to work alongside the DMO and ASC.

"Significant improvement to submarine availability is vital for the submarine capability, and particularly to Navy?s ability to grow the submarine workforce," Senator Faulkner said.

"Like any complex piece of equipment, some unexpected issued and defects occasionally occur that require repairs to be undertaken out side of routine maintenance cycles."

"While the current situation is far from ideal, their timely maintenance and repair is vitally important. The safety of the men and women serving aboard them is a paramount consideration."

Senator Faulkner said three Collins class boats were currently crewed and in various stages of operating in maintenance cycles. Two of these three boats were in routine maintenance and the other was at ASC for an urgent defect repair.

"The remaining three are awaiting longer term docking cycles which involved major overhauls and refurbishment by the original manufacturer, ASC," Senator Faulkner said.

The Australian reported today that the navy's $6 billion Collins-class submarines face serious operational restrictions after being hit by a run of crippling mechanical problems and troubling maintenance issues.

Some senior engineering experts now contend that the Swedish-supplied Hedemora diesel engines may have to be replaced - a major design and engineering job that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to complete.

So serious are the problems that the Defence Materiel Organisation has put the Collins boats at the top of its list of "projects of concern" - the key equipment issues troubling Australia's Defence leaders.

The Australian understands that in recent times only a single Collins-class boat has been available for operational duties but it is unclear whether this involves more than extended training missions.

Senior Defence leaders are also vitally concerned about the productivity and efficiency of ASC, the Adelaide-based wholly government-owned builder and maintainer of the Collins class.

One senior Defence source characterises the level of concern in senior government ranks about the availability of the Collins submarines as "extreme".

In the recent defence white paper, Kevin Rudd announced that the government would double the size of the RAN's submarine fleet from six to 12 when it came to replacing the Collins-class boats from 2025.

"If you can't do this right, how do you do the next one," observed one senior Defence source last night.

"We spend a lot of money on this core defence capability and they aren't working properly."

Defence Minister John Faulkner and Defence Materiel Minister Greg Combet have now demanded monthly updates from the navy and Defence about the operational state of the Collins-class vessels.

ASC, the Adelaide-based builder and maintainer of the Collins class, is now working through a range of mechanical issues affecting the performance of the six submarines with the state of the diesel engines a fundamental concern.

The trouble-plagued diesel engines are expected to last at least another 15 to 20 years before they are progressively replaced by the planned next-generation submarine from 2025.

While ASC believes they can still last the expected life-of-type and has called in a Swiss consultant to advise on a long-term remediation plan, other external experts believe there may be no option but to start planning for their eventual replacement.

The Hedemora diesel engines have never functioned well from the start and there are now real doubts that they are robust enough to see out the life of the Collins boats.

Other mechanical issues include the performance of the electric motors, batteries and generators but ASC sources are confident that these glitches are being satisfactorily resolved.

HMAS Collins is undergoing repairs on its diesel engines and there are temporary restrictions on two other boats while the bands on their electric motors are fixed.

But ASC remains confident that four "operational" boats will be available to the navy early in 2010 while HMAS Rankin and HMAS Sheean enter ASC's Adelaide yard to undergo a "full-cycle docking" - a major refit and overhaul.

ASC has the maintenance contract for the Collins boats worth nearly $200 million and this year is budgeted to spend $330m on maintaining and upgrading the submarines, including the combat system.

But Defence leaders are concerned about the company's ability to efficiently manage the regular full-cycle dockings (FCD) and other lengthy maintenance periods that the Collins boats require. Defence wants to cut the average time taken for a FCD from three to two years, saving at least $60-70m a year, which would be ploughed back into supporting the Collins capability.

ASC has a $3bn long-term through-life support contract for the Collins boats with the DMO which is due to be renegotiated by next March.

Senior Defence sources say there will be three key performance indicators that they expect from the new contract with ASC including an increased availability of boats for operations and a reduced cost of ownership to the commonwealth. "We are concerned with the amount of availability of the boats and the cost of doing the maintenance as well as some of the technical outcomes being achieved," DMO chief Stephen Gumley told The Australian.

"We are working with the company to improve in each of those areas. We hope to have a new through-life support contract for the Collins by Easter next year, which would commence in the financial year starting on July 1, 2010," Dr Gumley said.

"Like any complex asset, there is a series of technical challenges.

"We are working with ASC and external consultants to evaluate some of the challenges that wehave."

A recent external consultant's study of workforce productivity on the Collins boats at ASC's Adelaide yard suggests room for significant improvement.

According to documents obtained by The Australian, the study showed that some mechanical tradesmen working on the Collins boats were idle for much of their time on the shop floor.

One electrical tradesman was present for the entire day but his only role was to insert and remove the fuses for a pressure test. This test took 10 minutes and was held mid-afternoon.

Another electrical tradesman was clocked to have spent three hours and 12 minutes of productive work in a day. "The average efficiency observed (using generous definitions of productive work) was 30 per cent. Over 15 days of tradesperson time across multiple disciplines was observed, and nobody has suggested that theperiod of time we studied was not representative," the consultant report found.

"We believe that an efficiency of 80 per cent should be considered world-class in this environment. This would be a 167 per cent increase in the work output of the current workforce or opportunity for a dramatic cost reduction," the report said.

Ever since they were launched, the Collins boats have been plagued by mechanical problems.

As early as June 1999, a report to the Howard government found a range of serious technical defects in the Collins boats, three of which had been delivered to the navy by that time. These included problems with the diesel engines as well as noise propagation and the performance of propellers, periscopes, masts and the combat system. By far the most expensive fix was the the combat system. The original system never worked and was eventually replaced at a cost of close to $1 billion.

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I can sort of understand how a bleeding edge fire control system gets stuffed up, but a diesal engine? Haven't they been building them for about a century? If the incompetant asses at ASC were unable to even get that right I'm thinking that the company has no place in building Australia's next submarine fleet. Perhaps we should conduct an open tender and allow them to be built at a competant foriegn ship yard if necessary?
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Volkodav   10/24/2009 9:15:30 AM
Well thats a better and more polite answer than "you don't know what you are talking about so shut up" now isn't it ... you even managed to provide some new information so you can't be that worried about your job.
 
As for this latest issue with the Collins we'll see who is right over coming months. There will undoubtedly be questions asked in Parliament, and the Government and Opposition will be madly trying to pin responsibility on each other rather than ASC. The amount that it will cost us as well as the impact on the operational capabilities of the sub fleet will undoubtedly become public.
 
One point that I will make about the external consultant's report is that I can't see how benchmarks it was using about workforce efficiency would require specialist knowledge about submarine maintenance. Any idiot can see that you don't need to have an electrician sitting being paid around all day to spend 10 minutes changing a fuse.  This inefficiency  as well as your points about the problem that ASC faces with government gags is just another good reason why government owned corporations being drip fed on the public purse are a bad idea.
 
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cjskinner    Engineering professional Management needed   10/25/2009 4:17:26 AM
There is no shortage of sensational lessons to be learned from the Collins Class submarine project, and none of them is more important than the profound lesson that assuming design authority for a complex syetm like the Collins class is a daunting and risk-prone undertaking. Readers will recall that ASC assumed the Design Authority role in 2005 when Kockums, the original desgner, finally withdrew from the consortium after a protracted legal contest over intellectual property rights and contractual obligations.
 
However as the continuing saga shows every day, the role of design authority is onerous and requires the very best engineering expertise in a well-managed framework. We must doubt that these criteria are being met in ASC as it is today.
 
It also shows what Yule and Woolner's book on the Collins Class observed, that Australian engineering and DMO and Navy management has not yet learned how to act maturely in the role of design authority and parent organisation for a complex system design that is extrapolated far from its notional source.
 
This should not be seen as reason for a timid approach to the Future Submarine Project (SEA 1000). On the contrary we should make very best us of these painful lessons from the Collins project and the growing pains of ASC to ensure we can do much better in future.
 
PS there are also aspects of the Air Warfare Destroyer [AWD] project for which ASC is prime contractor that are affected by Collins expertise. So ASC has the opportunity to apply the lessons from Collins immediately.
 
 
 
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gf0012-aust       10/25/2009 5:04:05 AM
However as the continuing saga shows every day, the role of design authority is onerous and requires the very best engineering expertise in a well-managed framework. We must doubt that these criteria are being met in ASC as it is today.

 they're not

It also shows what Yule and Woolner's book on the Collins Class observed, that Australian engineering and DMO and Navy management has not yet learned how to act maturely in the role of design authority and parent organisation for a complex system design that is extrapolated far from its notional source.

there are a few things that are wrong in woolner and yules tome, so its not the be all and end all of the history of Collins.  what ASC haven't come to grips with is the fact that they are not sub designers and are not in the same league as HDW or the cousins.  they seem to forget that all of the design improvements were made by either ex RAN/RN submariners who set up separate companies and came back in as sub contractors - or due to assistance by the cousins.  in fact, most of the extraordinary work was done by DSTO.  Somehow ASC think that they've been instrumental.  They haven't.   There seems to be some confusion about the delivery process.  Navy set the specs.  DMO manage the project on behalf of Navy.  ASC are the builders. within DMO there are accountabilities set by Govt and Cabinet.  They cannot be modified and DMO thus works to a mandated Govt process.  There's a message in there for the astute

This should not be seen as reason for a timid approach to the Future Submarine Project (SEA 1000). On the contrary we should make very best us of these painful lessons from the Collins project and the growing pains of ASC to ensure we can do much better in future.

 There are lessons in there that everyone is aware of.  What we shouldn't be timid about is the issue that ASC should not be gifted the work - and there is a very clear sense of purpose from those currently involved with 2020 that ASC need to be hobbled if they aren't going to be of benefit

PS there are also aspects of the Air Warfare Destroyer [AWD] project for which ASC is prime contractor that are affected by Collins expertise. So ASC has the opportunity to apply the lessons from Collins immediately.

 I can think of at least 2 x US companies that elected not to sub contract for work on AWD when it was gifted to ASC.  One of the individuals I met when in the US was contemptuous of ASC management and the fact that they were preaching to people who had 30+ years experience designing modern GM assets.

Personally, I am a firm believer in open tender solutions for major capital assets.  ASC needs a fire hose put through it.

 
 
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Volkodav    Read highlighted section for the real reason the Class gets so much bad press   10/31/2009 1:29:51 AM
New subs come with a $36bn price tag
IAN MCPHEDRAN

October 30, 2009 12:01am

REPLACEMENT of Australia's troubled Collins Class submarine fleet will cost taxpayers $36 billion, a report shows.

The project will be a boon for South Australia, with the Federal Government saying the 12 next-generation submarines will be built at Osborne regardless of who wins the contract.

But a report out today warns that trying to build the new subs in Australia would be fraught with danger and the purchase of smaller, short-range "off-the-shelf" overseas submarines should not be ruled out.

The report, from the Government-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute, predicts the Australian-made subs would cost a "staggering" $3 billion each - three times the price of the older Collins Class boats.

The bill for the project is more than the annual $35 billion federal education budget, just shy of the $42 billion spent on the Government's stimulus package and more than a third of the $100 billion the nation spends on health each year.

SHOULD SOUTH AUSTRALIA BE THE HOME OF AUSTRALIA'S DEFENCE INDUSTRY? have your say in the comment box below.

THE ASPI report says ASC should be only the "thin-prime" contractor for the new project so the Government controls what will become a massive supply chain.

"ASC should not be handed the build contract as a fait accompli. Indeed, there are good reasons not to do that," the report says.

If the company became the preferred builder the number of new hi-tech jobs would increase. The new submarine project will generate hundreds of new jobs for South Australia.

The six Adelaide-built Collins subs, which cost about $1 billion each, have been burdened by serious problems, including noise and engine and computer breakdowns, since they were launched in the early 1990s.

When fit for sea they are among the most effective conventional submarines in the world.

However, just one or two boats are currently available for operations and crew shortages mean no more than three can be operated at any one time.

The Government's Defence White Paper included the 12 new submarines in its wish list, but it did not include a plan for recruiting the hundreds of sailors needed to crew them.

The vessels will be about one-third bigger and require at least an extra 20 crew per vessel to operate than the existing 160m-long Collins Class boats.

The wish list says the boats will have greater range, be able to remain underwater for much longer and be capable of a variety of missions ranging from land strike using cruise missiles to electronic spying.

The ASPI report, written by former submariner Sean Costello and strategic analyst Andrew Davies, paints a gloomy picture of a high-risk and costly venture and it warns the Government not to rule out an overseas solution.

"The ability of the world market to provide an off-the-shelf solution as the basis for the new fleet should not be abandoned early," it says.

"If an existing submarine design can defend the nation and support national strategy at a lower cost to the taxpayer, the Government must consider it."

The report warns that delays in delivering the Collins boats had negative effects on the manning and capability of the boats that were still being felt.

"Entering the build phase with changeable requirements and/or unproven technologies will significantly increase the risk of cost and schedule blowouts," it says.

The new vessels will need to be in the water by 2022 and fully operational when the Collins boats leave service in 2025.

Junior defence minister Greg Combet said the ability to build the submarines in Australia was a matter of "national strategic importance".

"It is a pleasure to also be working on the next-generation submarines," Mr Combet said.

"It will truly be a nation-building program unrivalled in our history."
_______________________________________________________________________________
 
Mcphedran is the one who coined the term "Dud Subs", he is the one who reports every positive as a negative and just wont let the thing go. Yet some how after over a decade of being the self appointed expert on the Collins Class, making a substantial part of his career critising the boats, the crews and everyone associated with the program he still comes out with crap like "160m long" when any school kid doing an assignment would have logged onto the the RAN or ASC site and seen the actual length is actually 78m.  The tool can't even do basic research yet his biased self serving opinions are taken as gospel by the general public.  Most of the grossely inaccurate rubbish he writes I have to let go due to security issues basically he is allowed to guess anything and print it yet the people who know can not respond with the truth due to classification, Commercial in Confidance, IP etc.  I don't know who is feeding him the info but I get the feeling they are either uninformed or deliberately leading old Ian up the garden path for their own reasons.
 
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gf0012-aust       10/31/2009 4:04:24 AM
I don't know who is feeding him the info but I get the feeling they are either uninformed or deliberately leading old Ian up the garden path for their own reasons.

it can't be anyone who's actually connected, because none of the numbers etc have actually been defined. eg, even 12 is the only empirical number avail and thats a finger pluck.

any boat dimensions quoted are just rubbish because we haven't even got assets to compare becasuse the capability is still being scoped.

what a dickhead.  
 
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Aussiegunneragain       10/31/2009 5:50:11 PM
We all know that journalists often get the detail on Defense matters grossly wrong and sometimes exaggerate, but that doesn't change the fact that their have been massive screw ups that are on the public record which have cost taxpayers a bomb and left us with a submarine fleet that has considerably reduced effectiveness for extended periods of time. Ian McPheredan didn't invent the fact that: the original combat system didn't work and which needed to be replaced at vast expense; the hulls on the early boats had defects that reduce their acoustic performance; the pressure hoses on one of the subs blew out and nearly sunk it, requiring the entire fleet to operate at a shallower depth than would have otherwise the case; and, this latest stuff up with the engines.
Those problems are the result of poor performance on the part of Defence, the ASC and various subcontractors. Irrespective of whether or not McPheradan has gotten a bit too enthusiastic and liberal with the facts at times, he has really done a the Australian public a service in exposing the disgraceful problems with this project over the last decade. I don't know if any heads have rolled over what has happened, but as a taxpayer I hope that a few key staff in these organisations have been assigned to the mail room for the rest of their careers for their roll in it.
 
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gf0012-aust       10/31/2009 7:42:34 PM
but as a taxpayer I hope that a few key staff in these organisations have been assigned to the mail room for the rest of their careers for their roll in it.

to paraphrase "the man from snowy river" - there has been movement at the station with the CEO getting permanent gardening leave - but there are some cultural issues still extant. (snr engineering cadre)
 
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gf0012-aust       10/31/2009 7:54:11 PM

Those problems are the result of poor performance on the part of Defence, the ASC and various subcontractors. 

there's administrative management blood on everyones hands here - no one is exempt from poor business practices.  although it would be more useful if McPhedran could actually make more of an effort in getting the facts right as it contributes to the overall publicity and awareness malaise that floods through the ravines of what is the general publics conciousness...
 
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Aussiegunneragain       10/31/2009 10:43:01 PM


but as a taxpayer I hope that a few key staff in these organisations have been assigned to the mail room for the rest of their careers for their roll in it.

to paraphrase "the man from snowy river" - there has been movement at the station with the CEO getting permanent gardening leave - but there are some cultural issues still extant. (snr engineering cadre)

Good, perhaps they need a few more examples like that set to make it stick in then.

 
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Aussiegunneragain       10/31/2009 10:52:47 PM



Those problems are the result of poor performance on the part of Defence, the ASC and various subcontractors. 


there's administrative management blood on everyones hands here - no one is exempt from poor business practices.  although it would be more useful if McPhedran could actually make more of an effort in getting the facts right as it contributes to the overall publicity and awareness malaise that floods through the ravines of what is the general publics conciousness...
I'd be the last to say that journalists, sub-editors and their media outlets shouldn't strive for the utmost accuracy and I'm definately opposed to sensationalising stories. Good journalism involves collecting and presenting the facts and then letting them speak for themselves. McPheradan's errors of fact and exaggerations smack of laziness, its like he got one good story ten years ago and has tried to make the most out of it every since. However, while this does him no credit the facts about the screw ups that have been an all too familiar part of the Collins Class story do speak themselves.  McPheradan's failings shouldn't be used by people who have an interest in the Collins Class project, to distract us from this reality.
 
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Volkodav       11/1/2009 3:56:01 AM
I have a couple of questions AG.
How much do you think negative press has adversely effected the ability of the RAN to recruit new submariners as well as the moral of serving submariners? 
 
Do you think low moral and being over worked, due to being short staffed, could be a major reason for the difficulty the RAN has retaining submariners?
 
Would you be of the opinion that when an owner / operator of an asset is not in a position to effectively maintain and operate that asset to the degree that they push many of the tasks of ownership, they have not been able to satisfactorily carry out themselves, back onto a contractor, without providing the extra resource need for the tasks, that it would be bad form to then criticize and sanction the contractor for taking too long and costing too much?
 
If ASC is the problem why are so many other programs ASC has nothing to do with, many far less complex that submarines, in serious difficulty?
 
It is a vicious circle AG and at the moment all of the blame is being pushed onto the middle man when there is blame aplenty to be shared.  I know people in subs who should not be in the jobs they are in but I also know CoA persons whose behaviour and professionalism leaves much to be desired and would likely have resulted in severe disciplinary action, if not termination, in private enterprise.
 
At the end of the day ASC is government owned and the DMO is a government body, QED it is the duty of the government of the day to knock their heads together and fix the problem(s).   Cutting the budget and forcing ASC to make a couple of hundred people redundant isn't the solution, do you realy think that the entrenched oxygen thieves are the ones who would be shown the door?  Perhaps, rather, they would protect themselves by sacrificing others (possibly the ones who made them look bad by not towing the line), instead of removing a much smaller number of very highly paid, very long serving and well connected individuals who inspite of their protestations, do very little, if anything of real value?  Could these cuts not actually further degrade ASC's performance by removing a substantial number of effective people leaving fewer to carry and work around the dead wood?
 
I made my escape prior to the current crap but it still makes me extremely angry to see good people knocked for the failings of a handful of Pandas who are having a lovers spat with another gang of Pandas who control the purse strings.  Elements of ASC have gone above and beyond working with the customer, the operators and SME's (Subject Matter Experts) to fix problems not of their making but this is ignored due to the inability of others, with much more power and say, to keep everything else on track.  Sub's don't need a firehose put through them or more audits for that matter, what they need is competent professionals (SME's) to be inserted in all critical areas to mentor those who are worth the effort and to flag those who need to be shot.  Do this and the capability is saved, fail and all is lost, maybe not now but eventually.
 
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Volkodav       11/12/2009 2:54:47 AM
Woo hoo, things are looking up, the super and pension funds have recovered remarkably well in the last quarter and fingers crossed the recently re-employed "dead wood / road blocks" will now re-retire letting the guys who know what needs to be done do it!
 
I now have much higher hopes for a great many projects.
 
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hairy man       11/12/2009 5:12:14 PM
I hate to say it but there is always a good chance that the wrong ones will retire, those who are sick of seeing the "deadwood" types getting paid for their poor contribution, etc.
 
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gf0012-aust       11/13/2009 1:35:09 AM

I now have much higher hopes for a great many projects.

combet gave his view of the world today and it was quite impressive - unfort it was class as an in-confidence session so can't repeat.

the good thing is that ASC have got a decent bloke at the helm with Kim Gilles.  you scored a winner
 
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Volkodav       11/13/2009 2:30:56 AM
Oh, hadn't heard anything as of 4:30 this arvo, can you give me any info on him?  He's not the Bae guy they were talking about is he?
 
I, along with others, have been getting a little frustrated at the number of retired "old mates" who had been parachuted into high paying contract, consultancy and even management positions since the GFC clipped their wings.  They seem dead set determined to force us to repeat every mistake they made on earlier projects rather than simply learn from their failures and move on to better solutions, and thats the better ones.  Far to many of them are still in retirement mode and really don't give a stuff, just going through the paces and collecting their ridiculous salaries for the minimum of effort.  You can see it in their eyes during meetings and working groups, they really don't want to be there and the solutions they are looking for are band aids to keep them in gravy until their super recovers.
 
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