Defence Business: Rolls-Royce fosters closer ties with defence | ADM October 2012

Engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce says it is seeking closer ties with the Australian Defence Force, building on experience gained in its’ UK and US markets.

The company has several contracts in what it considers its two home markets and sees the ADF as a possible partner in the region.

“In our two home markets we’ve developed our relationship and the way we deliver services quite a long way and we’re looking for other future-minded customers where we can build on this,” Nick Durham, President Customer Business, UK & International Defence explained. “We’re working quite hard at developing our relationship with the Commonwealth and the ADF.”

Durham said Rolls-Royce had held meetings with senior RAAF officers during the second half of last year to discuss areas where the company may be able to assist.

“We structured the conferences to have them tell us what their problems are, whether they are related to Rolls-Royce or not,” he said. “We outlined our capabilities, not necessarily in Rolls-Royce Defence but the whole company. The intention was for them to go away and reflect on our capability and for us to look at their issues and see if there’s some way we can adapt our capability to help.”

According to Durham, the dialogue last year led to the signing of the Fuel Management Contract with the RAAF in February.

Under the 12-month contract, which utilises technology developed by subsidiary company Optimised Systems and Solutions Inc (OSyS),Rolls-Royce is analysing fuel usage of the RAAF C-130J Hercules fleet. Australia is the first nation to sign up for the service in the Defence arena, but the technology is used in Rolls- Royce’s civil business.

“The trial started in February and it will be next February before we have a set of results, but we’re happy with the way we’re going,” Durham said. “We’ve had an enormous amount of follow-up questions, and we’re quite chuffed with the way the RAAF is talking about the program with other people.”

Rolls-Royce says the technology can apply to a wide range of platforms and not limited to those powered by its engines.

Larger Oz footprint

Rolls-Royce Head of Services, Globalisation Mark Suller moved to Australia last month to become part of the company’s local executive team, building the service and non-propulsion sides of the business.

“We really are looking to see how we can take our changing support philosophies and run them into Australia,” Durham said to ADM. “The product at the centre of this is Mission Core, and that’s how we actually look after our engines: Ensuring guaranteed levels of availability, taking out cost, making budgets more predictable and transferring materiel management risk to industry.”

Durham points to a contract with the UK Ministry of Defence to support the RAF Tornado fleet’s RB199 engines as an example of what can be done.

“We saved the customer 50 per cent of their costs and we doubled Rolls-Royce turnover, and even coped with a surge in operations during the Libyan campaign last year,” he said.

Another new initiative is the establishment of Service Delivery Centres in the Defence business, something that has been taken from the Marine sector – one of which is already operating at the Garden Island Naval Dockyard here in Australia. The prototype Defence Service Delivery Centre has just been rolled out at RAF Marham in the UK, giving the customer access to technical and logistical support right out to the flight line.

“We’re proposing that we engage with the RAAF to see whether it fits their style of operation and whether it is something they really want to do, because it is obviously a fairly significant investment for Rolls-Royce,” Durham explained.

In an Australian context, a centre could be set up on one RAAF base to support several fleets, such as the RAAF’s AE2100-powered C-130Js or the Adour engines in the Hawk.

“If the customer does want an SDC we would need to discuss where it would have the biggest impact and which engines they would want us to support,” Durham said. “We don’t just want to give them the UK product, we would like to find out if our product can be adapted to maximise the value we would want to deliver for their sort of operations.

“Taking the Performance-Based Logistics concept, working that with our Mission Core product and looking at how we can get best value out of services beyond propulsion.

“How we can take Engine Health Monitoring and develop it and if our enterprise modelling can help with issues such as Station Management are other discussion points,” Durham concluded. “We really do recognise that the RAAF and ADF are the thought leaders in the region and we hope that finding a way ahead will set an example.