Royal Australian Navy's Amphibious Ships continue to perform to a high standard, with both our Landing Platform Amphibious’ (LPA) performing well over the past year. MANOORA completed her refit and work ups quickly to meet all her operational commitments. All subsequent maintenance support activities have been within schedule and budget and her physical condition has continued to improve. MANOORA will be providing direct support to security arrangements for the Commonwealth Games, Melbourne.

HMAS KANIMBLA was the workhorse and star for the RAN in 2005. The ship successfully provided SE Asia support post the tsunami and the Nias Island earthquake relief. The ship is currently in refit and is expected to return to duty on time and within budget.

The team that keeps these ships performing at their best is located in the historic setting of Garden Island on Sydney’s foreshore. The Amphibious and Afloat Support Systems Programs Office (AASSPO) was established on 11 September 2000 as a result of the decision to amalgamate the Defence Acquisition Organisation, Support Command Australia and the National Support Division to form the Defence Materiel Organisation.

AASSPO provides in-service support to HMA Ships TOBRUK, WESTRALIA, SUCCESS, MANOORA, KANIMBLA, the Landing Craft Heavy-class, the sail training ship YOUNG ENDEAVOUR and the Army marine equipment fleet.

The SPO is part of Maritime Systems Division (MSD) and has around 80 staff in Sydney, Cairns and Perth led by Director Joseph Blansjaar.

Mr Blansjaar joined the SPO, eight months ago and is delighted to be part of the team that looks after the ‘fat ships’. His background is Navy with strong defence industry experience and upskilling his team is one of his priorities.

‘I believe that the primary focus of the AASSPO has to be sustainment. In this I very much intend to focus on ensuring the seaworthiness and safety of these ships and to capture their configuration’, Mr Blansjaar said.

‘We also need to get onboard the reporting tools and productivity improvement programs that DMO and MSD are developing and to increase the skill levels of all staff’, he said.

When it was established, the SPO followed the popular business model with the work of the SPO split across three functional areas: sustainment, enabling, and in-service generation. While these functions are still carried out, Mr Blansjaar has reorganised the SPO along product lines by merging the sections so that each platform is managed by a Ship Manager with direct responsibility for in-service generation and sustainment functions. Plans are underway to complete this merger by embedding finance/purchasing officers with the “troops on the ground” so they can be supported with Enabling expertise.

When we talk of “sustainment” we look at the full range of Integrated Logistic Support (ILS), corrective and preventive maintenance, maintenance engineering and changes to planned maintenance. Sustainment is the ‘pointy-end’ of the AASSPO’s business. The in-service generation function of ship management focuses on the configuration maintenance, data management, configuration identification and change, engineering change, configuration status accounting and configuration audits for new equipment.

Enabling provides business management and reporting, financial management, people management, administrative support, procurement, contracting and quality management.

In addition to its responsibility for Navy’s ships, the SPO takes care of Army marine amphibious capability, which supports the Army’s water-borne equipment. While a primary role is to provide expert advice this unit also manages Reports on Defective or Unserviceable Material, actions engineering change proposals and maintains the register for Army marine assets.

The next 12 to 18 months are going to be very exciting for AASSPO. Of particular note is the Integrated Material Support (IMS) Contract.

The IMS Contract will provide HMA Ships SUCCESS, TOBRUK, KANIMBLA and MANOORA with long term integrated logistic support to ensure they are safe, reliable and fully prepared to meet ongoing operational commitments, whilst at the same time, reducing the logistic cost of ownership. Kvaerner Oil and Gas Pty Ltd is the preferred tenderer and will be responsible for delivering a range of services including designing work programs for the logistic support the provision of overall engineering and maintenance support. The IMS Contract is expected to reduce this cost significantly over the life of the contract. The desired solution is to be achieved by a single prime contractor delivering operational capability in Sydney and any deployment area.

This type of contract is another example of the DMO's initiative to become a modern integrated Defence materiel business, closely aligned and partnered with industry. In addition, the innovative contracting strategy for the project will provide an incentive for the contractor to generate cost savings and other efficiency improvements by linking profit levels to the company’s performance against criteria. The initiative also includes implementing an annual cost reduction program and rewarding provider proposed initiatives that improve performance.

AASSPO is already planning for the introduction into service of NUSHIP SIRIUS to replace HMAS WESTRALIA by developing the RFT for the In Service Support (ISS) contract. The SPO anticipates competitive responses from industry and the contract will be awarded to support a smooth transition into service of SIRIUS in July-August 2006 timeframe.

Being an innovative and effective ship repair organisation, the SPO is very keen to embrace new ways of doing business. The new Modified Procurement Strategy for Major Ship Repair being briefed to industry as a new model for contracting ship refits is one such example. The intent of this approach is to involve the contractor in every phase of the work from planning and preparation phase of maintenance to the execution of the physical work.
Key elements of this initiative are:

• Ship Repairer contracted to conduct planning and preparation activities.
• Competed to qualified participants of the Panel Agreement.
• Contract awarded over multiple availabilities (full ship usage upkeep cycle).

The expected benefits are:

Better value for money to Defence by:

• Reducing financial risk to Industry when quoting for and conducting ship contracted maintenance resulting in lower costs to Defence.
• Ensuring the Contractor is responsible for entire ship repair products produced under the contract.
• Reduction in costs through reduced tendering requirements and promoting an environment where Industry can accurately forecast work loads.
• Continuing to maintain a competitive environment within the ship repair arena.
• Lower levels of in scope growth.
• Increased Industry capacity.

Benefits for Industry from:

• Smoothing out workloads and relaxing the requirement to competitively tender for each individual External Maintenance Availability (EMA).
• Larger contracts.
• Reduced schedule and financial risk.
• Increased certainty of forward workload.
• More stable workforce size.
• Longer planning period.
• Company involvement in planning when repairs are to be done.

In addition, the continued development of the Asset Management Planning System (AMPS) and associated productivity tools such as Team center (incorporating the Configuration Management Tool) is intended to provide better quality work packages and result in better refit outcomes. An improved working environment, taking a bigger footprint in Building 89 at Garden Island, will help with the identity of the business unit. The introduction of HMAS SIRIUS, providing for the later configuration change proposals for this ship, the disposal of HMAS WESTRALIA and the management of the sustainable availability of HMAS SUCCESS will be huge but welcomed challenges. The fringe involvement of the SPO with the new Landing Platform Dock project, as it develops to provide sustainment support concept input to the acquisition project, will also be a major venture that the SPO director and staff look forward to.

For more information about the AASSPO visit http://dpsyd.ear.defence.gov.au/aasspo/index.htm

HMAS Tobruk		HMAS Kanimbla
HMAS Tobruk and HMAS Kanimbla - ships that AASSPO provide in service support to.