Dockyard Management - A Skilled Alliance
The Platform Systems Upgrade(PSU) project that is currently underway on TE MANA, and began with TE KAHA last year, is arguably the most complex engineering project that the RNZN has undertaken since the Anzac frigates were delivered. The scale and complexity of the PSU demands “high end” project management and production skills from the combined Dockyard and Navy work forces involved. Delivering these projects successfully doesn’t happen by accident— they require a lot of effort by both the Navy and Babcock Fitzroy Ltd*.
With the move of the Fleet Support Organisation (FSO) into the Defence Logistics Command, Captain Fleet Support is now known as the Logistics Commander Maritime [LC(M)] and the FSO as the Logistics Command (Maritime). The dockyard at Devonport Naval Base continues to be managed by Babcock-Fitzroy Ltd*. This is a unique situation, where the Navy leases the dockyard to Babcock Fitzroy and hence is the landlord, but is also Babcock Fitzroy’s largest customer on the other.
Babcock Fitzroy provides a number of services to the Navy including:
- the majority of the Navy’s ship repair and maintenance;
- associated project management and design; and
- drawing management.
Unlike the wider commercial shipping market place, the Navy can’t easily ‘shop around’ for specialist warship repair and maintenance services. Conversely, Babcock Fitzroy can’t easily line up alternative customers, although it has, in fact, conducted refits and maintenance on French Pacific-based naval vessels and Pacific island patrol craft.
Babcock Fitzroy also undertakes commercial marine engineering work; none-the-less Babcock Fitzroy’s primary customer remains the Navy. The ratio of naval work to commercial work varies each year, but generally Navy work equates to 70% of Babcock Fitzroy’s workload.
Thus there is a natural synergy between the two organisations, and six years ago this was cemented in a formal Strategic Relationship between Babcock Fitzroy and the Navy, called the ‘Alliance’. While the formal legal relationship is laid out in the Dockyard Management Contract, two other documents, namely the Relationship Strategic Plan and the Alliance Charter, are equally important. The Relationship Strategic Plan spells out the vision, strategy and goals of the Babcock Fitzroy/Navy relationship and the Alliance Charter outlines the expected behaviours of the partners.
The long term contract allows the building of a long-term relationship and the two organisations together seek “To jointly deliver the best value support that continually enhances the effectiveness of the Navy.” The shared principles are:
- Deliver—always meeting our commitments.
- Best Value—supplying our services efficiently and benchmarking to ensure value for money, in the local competitive market.
- Support—focussing our efforts on the work that directly supports our customers.
- Effectiveness—achieving best possible results.
- Navy—the Dockyard exists for the RNZN. All our work supports this. Even commercial income supports it by indirectly paying for some of the overhead costs of supporting labour and retaining the Dockyard facilities.
The Alliance Charter emphasises the manner in which the Babcock Fitzroy and Navy aim to continually interact: mutual trust, respect, shared values and working together in a common cause. The Charter commits both parties to effective communication, cooperation at all levels and a strong sense of team work.
A number of organisational and operational examples exist which show the benefits of this relationship. Organisational examples include:
- An integrated ‘one site one plan’ approach for environmental management and health and safety that has led to Babcock Fitzroy and the LC(M) being awarded a Gold Enviro-Mark award last year. The award was for the South Yard Industrial Precinct, for compliance with best environmental management practice and commitment to continual improvement.
- An Integrated Materiel Support Organisation (opened August 2009) in the South Yard, an amalgamation of components of the Babcock Fitzroy supply chain and the Navy stores personnel from the Fleet Engineering Centre and Port Services Units.
- And last year the Babcock Fitzroy Calibration Centre won a Minister of Defence Award of Excellence for the testing, repair and calibration of all RNZAF electronic test equipment.
Operationally the value of this close relationship has been demonstrated on a number of occasions. One of the primary benefits is the ability to achieve outcomes within a time scale that is much faster than having to negotiate a contract on each occasion. Some recent examples are:
- CANTERBURY’s deployment to provide tsunami relief to Samoa and Tonga. CANTERURY was conducting a period of programmed maintenance and the stability upgrade when the requirement to deploy occurred. This work was immediately suspended and the ship brought to full readiness for sea within three and a half days.
- The deferral of MANAWANUI’s maintenance period to respond to the sinking of the Tongan ferry PRINCESS ASHIKA. The need to provide diving support required an assessment to be made regarding the essential elements of maintenance that needed to be conducted in order to allow the ship to complete the required mission outputs. This work was completed and all other planned work re-programmed to be undertaken when the ship returned to Devonport.
- TE KAHA’s PSU Phase One [see NT 146 August 09]. The successful completion of this work required the collaborative effort of a number of organisations, including: the Ministry of Defence, system designers, the Joint Project team, original equipment manufacturers, ship’s staff and shore support staff.
- TE MANA’s PSU Phase One [see NT 154 May]. The project is currently underway with a number of the lessons learned from the TE KAHA project being applied. The application of Lessons Learned and revised sequencing of key milestones has allowed production efficiencies to be gained.
- The ANZAC Communications Upgrade, project-managed by Beca, has been undertaken in conjunction with the PSU.
- CANTERBURY’s power generation defect. In June 2009 CANTERBURY lost one third of her diesel generating capacity; Babcock Fitzroy diesel fitters rectified the defect but an inspection revealed concerns with the big end bearings. In order to achieve a repair without a complete removal of the generators, the Babcock Fitzroy drawing office designed lifting points for the engine block, the Boilermakers fitted and tested the lifting points, the engine block was split from the sump, lifted and the big end bearings refitted.
Captain John Tucker, Logistics Commander (Maritime), emphasises that the Babcock Fitzroy/Navy Alliance encourages both organisations to be open to technical and production innovation. The delivery of Phase One of TE KAHA’s PSU saw innovation by the Joint Project Team in terms of project management, the contracting model employed, and the integration of Original Equipment Manufactures (OEM’s) into a complex program. He sees that the Alliance benefits from both partners’ inherent ability to innovate.
Managing Director of Babcock Fitzroy, Mr Mike Wardlaw, says that the shared values of the Alliance Charter remain valid. “There has been a distinct trend for increasingly more ambitious projects, but we also have a record for delivering these complex packages”.
“The fact that the PSU is being undertaken in New Zealand is a good news story for NZ and local Industry as well as the Dockyard. For the Dockyard it has enabled the fundamental capacity (volume) and capability (skill sets) of the commercial dockyard team to be built up which will enable it to provide better support to the fleet in the future. For New Zealand it was timed perfectly for the recession and has increased the value of the work flowing into our local economy at exactly the time that the recessionary impact needed to be countered.”
Like Captain Tucker, Mike Wardlaw is confident that the Alliance can continue to deliver, “Success begets success”
*The Naval Dockyard was commercialised in 1994 and for the first 10 years managed by Babcock NZ Ltd. A joint venture known as VT Fitzroy (VTF) gained the current 10-year contract with the Defence Force from 1 July 2004, to manage the dockyard. However with a recent change to business arrangements between the parent firms in the UK, the New Zealand joint venture VTF is now known as Babcock Fitzroy.
Previous | Contents | Next