DMO’s Industry Skilling Directorate is forging ahead with implementation of the Industry Skilling Program Enhancement (ISPE) package announced by the Federal Government in November 2008. The ISPE package consists of 14 new defence industry skilling and career initiatives.

As Director Industry Skilling, Mrs Robyn Wall points out, the directorate works closely with the defence industry sector to initiate and influence the development of sector specific training, education and growth programs in order to meet Defence’s growing procurement requirements.

“To that end, our work is focused on encouraging and developing industry based activities and program,” Mrs Wall said. “With the new ISPE package we now have three key strategies established to meet this aim; the SADI program, the Joint Defence and Industry Training Task Force (JTTF) and the ISPE package.”

The ISPE package, worth $60.8 million over six years, seeks to expand the pool of skilled people from which the defence industry sector can recruit, enhances work and career pathways in the sector and addresses specific defence industry capability skills gaps.

The new initiatives will be implemented through formalised partnerships between Defence and a number of other agencies and industry.

Three School Pathways Programs will be implemented in South Australia, Western Australia and New South Wales focusing on providing a career path for young people wanting to enter the industry. The areas covered under the programs will focus on manufacturing, maritime and technology skills and will increase the pool of young people ready to move from school into further education and apprenticeships, internships, scholarships and part-time work/study combinations in defence industry. These Pathway Programs will also increase employer awareness of options for recruiting young people and the value to business of doing so.

Introduction of an industry component to the Defence Technical Scholarships will provide scholarship recipients with exposure to the defence industry.

A new, undergraduate engineering scholarship program will be established to provide engineering students with work placement opportunities with defence small to medium sized enterprises (SME). The scholarship program will increase the number of student engineers exposed to defence SMEs, and the innovative engineering work these companies are involved in. Increasing the exposure of undergraduate students to this type of organisation and work, increases the likelihood of these students pursuing employment in defence industry upon completion of their study.

Funding will also be provided to raise the awareness of school students of engineering and careers through the ReEngineering Australia Forum (REA). REA promotes engineering as a potential career path early in the education process. This is mainly achieved through a unique engineering design competition for high school students.

The DMO Institute provides the professional training and education programs for the Defence Materiel Organisation. Funding will be provided to the DMO Institute to enable it to expand selected DMO programs and make them available to defence industry. An early focus of activity will be development of a Materiel Logistics Course.

Funding will be provided to convert the existing Masters of Military Systems Integration (MSI) course, offered by the University of South Australia, to flexible delivery mode. The MSI Flexible course will increase the accessibility of this defence specific post graduate course to defence sector stakeholders (Industry, DMO, DSTO and the ADF) and will be unrestricted by geographical location and time.

A Master of Systems Support Engineering program will be established through RMIT and the University of South Australia in “Support Systems Engineering” to equip senior engineering and project managers with the knowledge and understanding to develop and deliver integrated support solutions for defence equipment.  Led by BAE, with input from SAAB and ASC, the course will be multi-disciplinary and offered nationally in flexible delivery mode.

A new industry focused PhD program will be introduced, designed to increase the capacity and capability of defence industry in the area of systems engineering. The program will blend coursework with research. Funding will be provided for some course development work plus student scholarships. While the professional doctorate degree will be offered by the University of South Australia and Adelaide University, students will be drawn from around Australia.

There will also be funds available to address the skilling needs in areas of Priority Strategic Industry Capabilities (PSIC). PSICs are industry capabilities deemed to provide an essential national security and strategic advantage by being resident in-country.

The creation of Defence Industries Innovation Centres (DIIC) will increase the productivity, sustainability and competitiveness of defence SMEs who face challenges greater than SMEs in other industries. The DIICs will be located in existing Enterprise Connect Centres which have been established by the Australian Government through the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research to provide services to Australian SMEs with the objective of increasing their competitiveness and sustainability.