Defence Materiel Organisation Head Land Systems Division, Colin Sharp

Head Land Systems, Mr Colin Sharp took time at the recent D+I Conference to provide industry with an overview of the priorities within his Division over the next 12 months.

He said we are always looking for ways in which we can improve our performance and to this end he had identified a range of issues to focus on over the 2006-2007 period.

Schedule

Over the last 18 months LSD has moved to manage its major and minor projects using Open Plan Professional (OPP) scheduling tool. Over the next 12 months LSD will:

• Continue to develop expertise in project controls through user group training covering core areas such as work break-down structures, schedule development, statusing and performance measurement and reporting

• Work towards detailed Resource Loadings by job family or hierarchy across projects, systems program offices and branches using the newly implemented Labour Resource View

Earned Value Management

This coming year LSD will continue to focus on project performance against the Project Management Baseline to better inform management of current schedule status and assist informed decisions on future forecasts.

Minors

Consolidating the LSD Minor Program under a single division project management approach has been an ongoing initiative in LSD over the past year. In July 2006, LSD will automate the feeding of its minor project financial forecasts from OPP into the DMO’s Monthly Reporting System. This will bring LSD minor project reporting processes into line with those for major projects.

Skills

Land Systems Division has recently launched its new "engineering incubator" program. The aim of the program is to develop the next generation Systems Engineering Managers for large and complex major capital acquisition projects. It parallels the Skilling Australian Defence Industry program but is focused on Defence engineers, specifically Systems Engineers in the Land domain. It involves a formal program of about three years duration that will result in a highly skilled engineering practitioner certified as a Chartered Professional Engineering.

The program, which is managed by Land Engineering Agency, is targeted at engineers at different skill levels from juniors to practitioners, and includes a program of varied work experience intermingled with short technical courses, enrolment in Engineers Australia Professional Development Program, and technical mentoring by a Certified Practicing Engineer.

Mr Sharp said, ‘We are very proud of the level of support we provided to the ADF operational deployments over the past year. These changes will allow us to achieve even higher standards when equipping and sustaining our ADF customers in the future.’