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Submarines by the dozen?

10 April 2014

The press has made much of a perceived backing down from a plan to build 12 submarines. We say ‘perceived’ because no-one has actually said that. But it’s true there’s been some very careful language choices around submarine numbers, including by the Defence Minister, here in his speech:

… my primary focus is not on numbers but on the capability and availability of boats required to meet the tasks set by government.

And here in a doorstop:

To [put] a number on submarines is a distraction. What we want is a long term capability that can be sustained as an enterprise, as an asset that can go long into the future building submarines.

Australia’s submarine enterprise: setting course

4 July 2013

ASPI today hosted a lunch address by Mr David Gould (PDF) in the DMO. It wasn’t the first public address on the subject of Australia’s current and future submarines by DMO’s General Manager Submarines, but it was certainly the most thorough to date. What follows is my take on the main messages in the speech and Q&A which followed—if it’s not in quotes, don’t blame Mr Gould.

The talk began with the recent past with a discussion of the Collins fleet. Current availability of the Collins was described as a significant improvement on the ‘intolerable levels of the late 2000s’, with three boats available to Navy much of the time—an improvement of about 50% on last year and ahead of interim targets. The long-term aim is for three to always be available, with a fourth available at short notice if required. Those numbers are consistent with the international benchmark identified in the second Coles report—which I estimate to be a little under 1,200 days of availability a year.

The caution on that good news is that things might get worse again before stabilising in 2016–17, as the shortfalls in maintenance over the past decade are progressively overcome. But even that decline isn’t guaranteed, as improved reliability of the boats due to (long overdue) changes in the assignment of responsibility in engineering decisions and the way in which spares are managed should see taxpayers getting better value from each submarine. It might seem surprising that what’s often reported as fundamental design problems can be ameliorated through what amounts to changes in management practices but that’s what the first Coles report (PDF) told us—nine and a half out of ten major findings were failures of governance. Read more

Reader response: managing submarines and managing uncertainty

13 December 2012

Andrew Davies’ post yesterday on the second Coles report is absolutely right: the fundamental issues don’t lie with the Collins design itself but with the poor management of the complex system that determines the maintenance and manning of the submarines. Andrew is also right that if those issues can be resolved, there could be very significant efficiencies involved in extending the Collins’ life of type.

However, as Andrew also notes, there is no certainty that those issues are being resolved or will be in future. As a result, there is a risk that the extension option will simply be throwing good money after bad. The question then becomes how different possible approaches going forward compare in terms of their consequences if those problems are not fully or satisfactorily addressed.

In other words, what needs to be analysed are the risks under alternative approaches for taxpayers (both financially and in terms of our defence capability) and how those risks vary with the extent to which we can or cannot address the systemic problems Andrew (and Coles) notes. Read more

Graph of the week: Collins (un)availability

13 December 2012

Yesterday’s release of the Coles review report into the availability of Collins Class submarines was very illuminating. As well as telling us that the Collins has some life in it yet, it shed a bit more light on past performance than had been previously unavailable in public.

In particular, after the 2008/09 reporting year, Defence stopped reporting availability data for the Collins fleet, instead rolling it into a single number for ‘major combatants’—ie submarines plus frigates. But figure 3 from the latest Coles report (PDF) and data from past Defence Annual Reports allows us to produce the following chart.

This graph updates the figure that Mark Thomson and I produced for our previous work on submarines. Historical data is in blue, estimated data in red. Perhaps it’s not too surprising that the 09/10 figures were deemed unfit for public viewing.

Sources: Defence Annual Reports (blue), estimates based on Coles data (red and black)

Andrew Davies is a senior analyst for defence capability at ASPI and executive editor of The Strategist.

Sub par management: the Coles review and the Collins Class

12 December 2012

Before the second part of the Coles review into submarine availability had even been released, ‘sources’ were telling the press that the report should scuttle the idea of using the Collins design as a basis for the future submarine. To be sure, when the report emerged later in the morning (PDF), it had a lot to say about the availability of the Collins fleet that doesn’t reflect well on its management.

For instance, comparison against international benchmarks is very unflattering—the Collins availability is only a little more than half of the average, while maintenance overruns clock in at more than 200% of the international average. At times like this, all we can say is thank heavens for Canada.

This is nothing short of scandalous. A $10 billion investment by the Australian taxpayer—one that has come with a significant opportunity cost due to the economy-wide shortage of skilled workers, engineers and project managers—has been mismanaged to the point where the submarines have essentially been unfit for purpose. Read more

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