Future Submarine Industry Skills Plan

In December 2011 the Minister for Defence, Stephen Smith and the Minister for Defence Materiel, Jason Clare announced that the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) would develop a Future Submarine Industry Skills Plan.

This week, the Government released details of how that work will be undertaken.

The Future Submarine Industry Skills Plan will identify what is required to build and sustain the skills required to successfully deliver Australia’s Future Submarine capability.

The plan will involve hundreds of companies and thousands of workers, Federal and State Governments, Defence, industry, universities and the Australian public with skills needed which include systems design, naval architecture, propulsion and combat system engineering, production engineering, project planning and control, production scheduling, material procurement, risk management, budget control, financial accounting, contract management, systems integration, and trade skills such as welder, boilermaker, and electrician.

The Plan will:

• Determine the type of skills required to successfully deliver the Future Submarine Project;
• Determine the size and profile of the workforce required to successfully deliver the Future Submarine Project;
• Determine the current capacity and capability of the Australian shipbuilding industry, in terms of skills and workforce;
• Determine the current productivity of the Australian shipbuilding industry and establish comparable international benchmarks;
• Analyse the naval shipbuilding projects currently in the Defence Capability Plan and calculate the effect these projects will have on growth of the capacity and capability of the Australian shipbuilding industry;
• Analyse current education and training programs, including apprenticeships, and calculate the effect these programs will have on growth of the capacity and capability of the Australian shipbuilding industry;
• Propose alternate scenarios for sequencing Defence projects that will better deliver the capacity and capability required to successfully deliver the Future Submarine Project;
• Propose improvements to the education and training programs that will better deliver the capacity and capability required;
• Propose other actions required to deliver the capacity and capability, including industry productivity, required to successfully deliver the Future Submarine Project; and
• Propose a management arrangement within Defence, particularly the DMO, for the ongoing management of a sustainable naval shipbuilding program.

The plan will be developed by a team be led by the chief executive officer of the DMO Warren King.

It will be supported by an expert industry panel headed by current Australia Post chairman David Mortimer, AO, who conducted the Defence Procurement and Sustainment Review known as the Mortimer Review in 2008.

The expert industry panel will include representatives of DMO, Navy, the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, Skills Australia, unions, the CEOs of the four principal Australian naval shipbuilding companies; ASC, Austal, BAE Systems and Forgacs Engineering and the CEOs of the principal naval systems integration companies: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Thales, Saab Systems and BAE Systems.

This group will consult widely with State Governments, Australian industry, industry associations, universities and other academic organisations and think tanks to develop this plan.

The Panel will commence their work this month and the Plan will be presented to Government by the end of the year.