Army - a client-rich environment for DMO
The expansion of the Army, announced two months ago, has added to the workload of DMO's Land Systems Division as it helps grow and ssustain a faster, more mobile, Hardened and Networked Army.
The period 2006-2007 is shaping up to be one of great challenges and also achievements for the Defence Materiel Organisation's Land Systems Division. For Head of Land Systems Division Mr Colin Sharp this means living the DMO goals of professionalise, reprioritise, standardise, benchmark improving industry relationships and lead reform in Defence, as he re-shapes his organisation to meet the expanding needs of Australia's land forces.
The recent announcement by the Prime Minister to expand the Army by around 2600 personnel, above that previously agreed under the Hardened and Networked Army (HNA) initiative, will have a significant impact on the DMO, particularly Land Systems Division. This expansion is expected to cost $10 billion over the next decade, with much of the budget earmarked for new equipment and facilities.
The expansion of the Army will commence in early 2007 and is due for completion in 2011. Land Systems Division is moving quickly to respond to these challenges and a new Soldier Modernisation Systems Program Office (SMSPO) has been established. In recognition of the complexity of raising and equipping two new infantry battalions and associated combat support units, Land Systems Division is also creating a dedicated Program Office to coordinate all DMO activities associated with both the Army's expansion and HNA.
The new Program Office will be headed by a Colonel or civilian equivalent, staffing has already commenced and the new organisation is expected to be fully established in late 2006. Colonel Brett Billett (Director of Land Materiel Management) will perform this function until the new Program Office is established.
Planning has already started and the requirement for additional equipment, including infantry mobility vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, and support vehicles, is being investigated. Coinciding with this expansion is Land Systems Division's ongoing support to HNA.
Fleet management is a significant part of the DMO's business and in Land Systems Division it needs to be revitalised. Our sustainment budget in FY 2006/07 is $567m, or more than 50% of Land Systems Division's annual expenditure. Accordingly, this core function is now receiving a similar weight of management attention to that previously afforded capital procurement activities. Sharp has appointed a number of key process owners and Colonel Billett is the process owner for Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) and Sustainment.
The first step in this journey was a gap analysis of existing ILS and fleet management procedures. As a consequence a new series of fleet management documentation, tailored specifically for land materiel, is being drafted and are expected to be complete by 30 September 2006.
Fundamental to improving sustainment management is effective performance measurement. Land Systems Division has adopted the DMO's data warehousing tool, Project Minerva, and has developed a standardised set of output performance reports. Minerva has the ability to access and manipulate data from a variety of Defence corporate information management systems and provides a powerful insight into fleet performance. Under a pilot project, the reporting system is being applied to a number of key land capabilities including: Abrams tank, ASLAV, M113, Bushmaster and various weapons fleets.
In conjunction with DMO initiatives, Land Systems Division has implemented a Fleet Management Forum. The forum focuses on training and professional development for personnel employed in the sustainment and fleet management streams. The training will leverage off better, standardised processes and powerful, networked information systems.
In the same way that Open Plan Professional (OPP) has revolutionised the management of acquisition projects, the Maintenance Management Module (MMM) of the Standard Defence Supply System (SDSS) will be implemented within Land Systems Division and a dedicated project team is being established to oversee this program.
Support to operations is the highest priority activity within Land Systems Division, and embraces both support to existing capabilities and the rapid acquisition of new equipment. Sustaining complex military equipment that is deployed many thousands of kilometres away at the end of a tenuous supply chain is no mean feat and LSD works closely with many other Defence agencies to ensure that the best possible support is provided to Australian forces in Sudan, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands.
Rapid acquisition projects are urgent requirements that are linked to particular operational activities. The types of capabilities acquired by LSD under rapid acquisition have included: desert pattern uniforms, enhanced body armour, specialist weapons and sights and protected crew cabins for both Unimog and Mack trucks. In the future, LSD will deliver engineer plant with protected crew cabins for deployment to high threat areas in the Middle East. Further enhancements to both Bushmaster and ASLAV will provide greater force protection.
Land Systems Division support to operations can be best quantified in financial terms. In FY 2005/06, LSD spent $96m on operational sustainment compared to a 'domestic' sustainment budget of $539m. LSD is currently managing around 80 rapid acquisitions, in addition to its project and sustainment work.
Over the last year Land Systems Division performed very well against sustainment, ACAP and major project budget measures, representing significant improvements in project and fleet management across the division. Most pleasing was the good budget performance that reflected improved schedule and cost performance in many projects and fleets (for example, major projects schedules were advanced by $23m over a base of $462m.)
This next year has a whole new set of new milestones to reach and improvement initiatives to implement in our key project areas:
Land 116 Bushranger - 188 Bushmaster Infantry Mobility vehicles have been delivered with the remaining 111 due by mid 2007. The vehicles are deployed on operations in the Middle East. Enhancements are being investigated including the rapid acquisition of a Protected Weapon Station, armour protection enhancements and a cooling system for the drinking water tank.
LAND 112 Australian Light Armoured Vehicle Program - In 2007 the ASLAV Program will deliver a number of additional capabilities - a fully standardised fleet, a Crew Procedural Trainer and the final through life support elements of the Remote Weapon Station. Work in the program will centre on maintaining operational availability, developing a Surveillance prototype, and initiating the mid-life upgrade of the platform under Phase 4.
Land 907 Tank Replacement - Key activities will be delivery of the prime equipment, including all the tanks, completion of the initial training, and establishment of initial logistics support - all leading to acceptance of the operational capability by July 2007 (see p.xx). Another key activity will be work to establish long term logistics support arrangements.
Land 106 M113 Upgrade - The focus for M113 Upgrade is achievement of production readiness and preparation for introduction into service. This entails resolution of outstanding technical issues, especially brakes, completion of testing, provision of initial logistic support including manuals and spares, production of first vehicles and commencement of initial training.
Land 17 Artillery Replacement Project - this seeks to introduce a modern and digitised Indirect Fire System for Army (see p.xx). The project continues to develop strategies for acquiring the discrete system elements including platforms, command and control systems and munitions. Current plans for 2007 include the finalisation and release of formal industry solicitation documents.
Land 125 - this will complete the roll out of Soldier Enhancement Version One (SEv.1) with the introduction of Thermal Weapon Sight. Solicitation for SEv.2 capabilities will commence across the Lethality, C4I and Survivability Sub-systems. Key to this phase is the combined solicitation with Land 75 for the Battle Management System capability.
Special Forces - This year we will continue to develop the mature ADF Full-time Commando capability based on 4 RAR (Cdo) under Projects Land 132, JP 199 and JP 2088. This includes delivering a range of lethality, mobility, sustainment, survival and C3I equipment. We also continue to support ADF Special Forces on operations.
Pharmaceuticals - the Health Systems Program will continue to deliver pharmaceuticals, medical and dental stores to the ADF. This will be assisted by the establishment of flexible standing offers for a wide range of products. The Program will continue to engage key stakeholders to improve inventory management tools and processes.
Clothing/Equipment - The 29 recommendations of the Clothing Review Report will be implemented and the new organisational structure will be complete. The System Program Office will be ISO9001 certified and a Management Information System will be introduced that will significantly improve the efficiency of management of technical information related to ADF Clothing. (Editor's note - ADM will cover the Combat Clothing sector in more detail in a future edition.)
New Projects and the Defence Capability Plan 2004-2014
Concurrent with increasing operational tempo is acceleration in the acquisition rate. The Defence Capability Plan (DCP) for 2004-2014 has presented challenges with the introduction of the new main battle tank, soldier combat system, the enhanced deployable medical capability and aviation fire trucks.
The division is currently responsible for around $3.4 billion of assets under construction. The latest defence capability plan, 2006 - 2016 will add a further $9.5 billion dollars, not including the Army expansion. The table below shows the projects to be approved by year of decision.
Indicative Year of Decision 2006-07
Project
JP125 PH2
Joint Theatre Distribution
LAND 121 PH3A
Overlander - Field Vehicles & Trailers - Brigade
LAND 125 PH3
Soldier Enhancement Version 2
LAND 58 PH3
Weapon Locating Radar Life of Type Extension
Indicative Year of Decision 2007-08
Project
JP2097
REDFIN - Enhancements to Special Operations
LAND 144 PH1
Counter Mine Capability
LAND 146 PH2
Combat Identification for Land Forces
LAND 40 PH 2
Direct Fire Support Weapons
Indicative Year of Decision 2010-11
Project
LAND 121 PH3B
Overlander - Field Vehicles & Trailers - Rest of Fleet
LAND 17 PH1
Artillery Replacement
LAND 53 PH1BR
NINOX - Night Fighting Equipment Replacement
LAND 91 PH6
Small Arms Life of Type Extension
Indicative Year of Decision 2009-10
Project
LAND 125 PH4
Soldier Enhancement Version 3
JP 2060 PH3
ADF Deployable Health Capability
LAND 400
Survivability of Land Forces
LAND 112 PH4
ASLAV Enhancement
LAND 146 PH3
Combat Identification for Land Forces
LAND 19 PH7
GBAD - RBS 70 Enhancements or Replacement
LAND 91 PH7
Small Arms Life of Type Extension - Remainder of Fleet
Of course, some existing projects will close in the period. Nevertheless, the increase will cause pressure to increase the number of project management staff and recruitment will be a challenge.
The requirements that flow from a Hardened and Networked Army, existing major acquisition projects such as Overlander, our extensive minor capital acquisition program, fleet management, rapid acquisitions and support to operations will place great pressure on LSD.
We need to meet these challenges by attracting and retaining professionals in Project Management, Engineering, Technical, Logistics, Finance and Contracting. To meet the ever increasing requirements of Defence and combat the difficulties associated with recruiting from a rapidly shrinking talent pool, we are developing recruitment programs and utilising Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA) to attract, reward and retain the right people.
LSD is also committed to professionalising its workforce. For example, our project managers will build on their interim certification with final certification activities scheduled for the next half year. Independent assessment and four other criteria ensure that the trust we place in our project managers is backed up by appropriate professional status, knowledge, work experience and a record of performance.
We need to invest heavily in training and development of our people and support them in their efforts to professionalise. We have a large graduate program, a specialist engineering 'incubator' scheme and are introducing cadetships. We have also released a career guide for our various work streams to provide a path for our staff to grow and advance in our organisation.
Last year, I hosted a presentation and luncheon at Victoria Barracks in Melbourne for representatives of our industry partners and I will host at least one of these functions each year in order to provide an opportunity for industry representatives to meet key Land Systems Division personnel and engage them on mutually important issues. Such functions help us to build and strengthen our relationships with our industry stakeholders.
The functions we held recently to communicate the outcomes and recommendations of the Clothing Review to industry stakeholders have helped to improve our engagement with those stakeholders. I will keep the communication lines open by hosting regular functions to discuss clothing and equipment issues. The next clothing and equipment function is scheduled for 27 February 2007. This means of communication will be supplemented by a quarterly newsletter for our clothing and equipment industry stakeholders called Threads. The inaugural edition was released in September 2006.
The Division's membership of Australian Industry and Development Network (AIDN) Victoria has proven valuable in engaging with SMEs and I wish to become involved in other industry networks in the forthcoming year. LSD also participates in industry-related conferences and exhibitions by providing speakers, displays, brochures and help desks. At this year's Defence and Industry Conference we were able to situate ASLAV and Bushmaster vehicles within the Canberra Convention Centre. In October we will have a strong presence at the Land Warfare Conference and plan to continue this strong engagement with industry during various events planned for 2007.
Our participation in DMO's ScoreCard program provides 360o performance feedback between us and our contractors and we are now analysing the data from the ScoreCard rounds to determine any trends both in our own performance and in the performance of our contractors. Over the next year I will use this analysis to identify and acknowledge those companies whose performance on our contracts is to a very high standard.
Progress to Date on Minor Projects
During 2005 we implemented a roll out of DMO's Improved Project Schedule and Status Reporting initiative (IPSSR) to the minor projects that it manages, with some tailoring to address the requirements of the Army Minor Capital Investment Program (AMCIP).
Currently covering thirty-six projects and an approved budget of $230 million ($57 million for FY 06/07) this rollout of IPSSR to minor projects was complete in April 2006. A further seven projects are developing schedules to support their business case as they seek approval to proceed.
Each Minor project now has a schedule based on a standard Work Breakdown Structure and a standard set of core activities. The schedules all have a performance measurement baseline and a range of performance metrics is in place to inform management how each project is tracking against this agreed baseline.
Our focus for the coming year is to continue to build schedule maturity within the current projects, create schedules for new projects and improve on the overall project control aspects within the AMCIP.
We have implemented a significant reform program in relation to the procurement of ADF clothing. An implementation plan has been developed and subsequently approved by the Minister for Defence.
A separate ADF Clothing System Program Office has been created and a revised structure has been developed, agreed and recruitment action is well underway to further improve the management of clothing for the ADF. Additional sustainment, engineering and contracting staff are supporting the reforms and processes.
Land Engineering Agency has appointed additional textile engineers to provide specialist advice to the SPO and a DSTO Scientist has commenced with ADF Clothing (outposted from DSTO) and a range of actions have been agreed upon.
A draft Science and Technology plan is being developed and DSTO is recruiting additional specialist staff in the fields of anthropometry, material science, thermal physiology and test and evaluation. A Management Information System has also been agreed upon and will be implemented.
Next year presents another exciting challenge for Land Systems Division. We intend to keep improving, and engaging with industry, to meet the expectations of the people of Australia.
Colin Sharp is head of the DMO's Land Systems Division.
By Colin Sharp, Melbourne