Australia to reform naval ship repair sector

“These reforms being announced today will lead to greater certainty in the naval ship repair sector allowing for increased investment and better performance. This is good for jobs, good for the taxpayer and good for the Navy,” Combet said.

Under these reforms, the defence materiel organisation will reform the Navy’s Major Fleet Unit Repair and Maintenance program as outlined in the Smart Sustainment initiative. The principal element of the reform program is the establishment of long term performance based contracts for repair and maintenance activities in lieu of the current arrangement that is based on awarding a contract under a panel arrangement for each and every maintenance activity.

These reforms will lead to the batching of Australia’s requirements and will affect the maintenance and repair of the major fleet units, i.e. the eight

ANZAC

class frigates, the four

Adelaide

class frigates, the two amphibious landing ships and the heavy landing ship. It is also intended that these new maintenance concepts be extended to new ship classes such as the air warfare destroyers and the landing helicopter dock ships when they are introduced.

“On average the Australian Government spends $150 million per annum on major surface ship repair and maintenance. We would expect to see significant savings from this reform. I am pleased that this initiative will also provide better notice to Navy and ships’ crews of the planned location of maintenance patterns,” Combet said.