RAN begins IT overhaul

The Navy is pioneering a new ADF-wide configuration and technical data management environment to underpin the maintenance and upgrade of its surface fleet.
The Royal Australian Navy has become the first beneficiary of the Defence Department's corporate strategy for the rationalisation and standardisation of configuration/technical data management applications in the materiel domain.

This strategy aims to move from paper-driven asset management into the paperless, instant era where it has control of 'configuration data' rather than mere 'maintenance data'.

The move has seen the RAN begin a rollout to standardise record keeping and traceability on all major capital acquisitions of ships and aircraft - from concept to disposal - and in due course this will encompass companies along its entire supply chain for total, seamless integration.

Based on Teamcenter Aerospace & Defense software, which is supplied in Australia by Product Lifecycle Management Australasia (PLM), the development complements the RAN's current seagoing logistic transactions system, the Asset Management Planning System (AMPS), by interfacing AMPS to a shore-based safety- and efficiency-driven Configuration Management Tool (CMT), Teamcenter.

Commander Mal Gahan, CMT Project Manager in the DMO, says that the marriage of AMPS and Teamcenter provides the optimum solution for the volatile world of maintenance management on the one hand, and the controlled, docile world of engineering change management on the other.

It ensures that the sailors conducting maintenance in ships at sea can go about their tasks in the maritime environment, safe in the knowledge that the documentation, spares and training material are the latest available, and congruent with the current modification status of the equipment that they support.

"We wanted a purpose-built information system that gives us configuration management compliance and complements our existing maintenance management system. Teamcenter Aerospace & Defense has given us a powerful platform which is very good value for money compared to regular IT systems and works reliably on the Defence Network as soon as you install it," said Commander Gahan.

"Nowhere in Defence was there a configuration management tool that would give us the transparency we needed for the entire lifecycle of every maritime asset," said Commander Gahan.

"We required something that identified equipment fitted and any modifications to it, including any changes to drawings, specifications and the like: and we needed links between technical documents, all in one data warehouse."

The trigger for the search for such a capability was the fire in HMAS Westralia in 1998 which claimed the lives of four Navy sailors.

One of the recommendations of the Board of Inquiry was to do a review of configuration management in the RAN. Mal Gahan, in his previous capacity as a systems engineering management consultant, spent five months compiling the 'Gahan' Report which made many recommendations, of which one was to put all Navy data in one place and institute a lifecycle change management process.

"Teamcenter Aerospace & Defense allows us to record important steps in the design and change management processes of an asset or equipment, such as the 'needs baseline', 'requirements baseline', 'functional baseline', 'allocated baseline', 'development baseline' and 'product baseline' and know where we were are and why we are there."

"Before we had filing cabinets and manual archives but nothing really linked to anything. We also now have created a safer environment in which to work from start to finish."

"At this early stage of the project we are loading product baseline data of actual ships in service. In the near future we will be loading the configuration baseline data of ships that are still on the drawing boards, and trace their development through to delivery from the shipbuilder to Navy and thereafter all modifications to their hardware and software during their thirty or so years of operational service, through to their disposal."

The rollout began through the ANZAC SPO managing eight Anzac-class frigates operating out of Fleet Base West, WA. The implementation was completed on time and on budget by PLM in June 2003. The next was the Guided Missile Frigate (FFG) SPO managing six Adelaide-class frigates operating out of Sydney. This was also completed on time and on budget by PLM in September 2004.

In Australia, the CMT has 300 users based in WA and 200 users on the Eastern seaboard. The web-enabled system allows firewall-protected access to authorised users of the Defence Restricted Network (DRN) from anywhere in the world.

Teamcenter Aerospace and Defense has a secure, web-native environment with product lifecycle management capabilities for program-driven change and configuration management, audit management, scheduling, document management, ITAR (Export Control) administration and CDRL/SDRL data management.

Combined with Teamcenter In-Service (which Navy is currently evaluating) for maintenance, repair and overhaul personnel, the product provides the first complete product lifecycle management solution for the Aerospace and Defence industry to fully integrate product knowledge from procurement stage to product retirement.

"By moving from simple asset management and into a thorough configuration management, the Navy has set the foundations for similar upgrades right across the three arms of the Department of Defence," said Commander Gahan.

"Standardisation and rationalisation of asset information is one thing, but the centralisation of data and total control of that data eliminates support of existing systems so there is a major cost saving."

Safety has been improved immensely as all data - especially modifications and deviations from approved baselines - are updated directly from Teamcenter to AMPS so that operating and maintenance personnel have precise information at their disposal.

Logistic downtime will be reduced as the Navy is going to supply the right part to the right person at the right place at the right time.

"Normally, when something is acquired from industry you buy access to that industry's control processes and production of that item, but an entity as large as the Navy sees a large corporate governance component of those processes shift to us," said Commander Gahan.

"A ship is not as homogenous as an aircraft which is generally acquired from a single manufacturer with a total support regime from that single source. In the Navy we have a corporate governance role to manage the configuration of our assets organically over and above our OEM's need."

"A ship is a multi-supplied item and the Navy is required to control these assets in close cooperation with the ship builder and its combat system suppliers.

"We want to do the same sort of thing with all our suppliers - eliminating the need for paper. We are not actually doing the shipbuilding work, but we are controlling the requirements for it and then gaining corporate governance control of engineering changes to the asset that we bought."