News: Submarine Skills program confirmed | ADM June 2012
In December 2011 the Minister for Defence, Stephen
Smith and the Minister for Defence Materiel, Jason Clare announced that the Defence
Materiel Organisation (DMO) would develop a Future Submarine Industry Skills Plan.
The Government has now released details of how that work will be undertaken.
The Future Submarine Industry Skills Plan will
identify what is required to build and sustain the skills to successfully
deliver Australia’s Future Submarine capability.
The plan will involve hundreds of companies and
thousands of workers, Federal and State Governments, Defence, industry, universities
and the Australian public with skills needed which include systems design, naval
architecture, propulsion and combat system engineering, production engineering,
project planning and control, production scheduling, material procurement, risk
management, budget control, financial accounting, contract management, systems integration,
and trade skills such as welder, boilermaker, and electrician.
The Plan will:
• Determine the type of skills required to successfully deliver the Future Submarine Project;
• Determine the size and profile of the workforce required to successfully deliver
the Future Submarine Project;
• Determine the current capacity and capability of the Australian shipbuilding
industry, in terms of skills and workforce;
• Determine the current productivity of the Australian
shipbuilding industry and establish comparable international benchmarks;
• Analyse the naval shipbuilding projects currently in
the Defence Capability Plan and calculate the effect these projects will have
on growth of the capacity and capability of the Australian shipbuilding
industry;
• Analyse current education and training programs,
including apprenticeships, and calculate the effect these programs will have on
growth of the capacity and capability of the Australian shipbuilding industry;
• Propose alternate scenarios for sequencing Defence
projects that will better deliver the capacity and capability required to successfully
deliver the Future Submarine Project;
• Propose improvements to the education and training
programs that will better deliver the capacity and capability required;
• Propose other actions required to deliver the
capacity and capability, including industry productivity, required to
successfully deliver the Future Submarine Project; and
• Propose a management arrangement within Defence,
particularly the DMO, for the ongoing management of a sustainable naval
shipbuilding program.
The plan will be developed by a team be led by the
chief executive officer of the DMO Warren King. It will be supported by an expert
industry panel headed by current Australia Post chairman David Mortimer, AO,
who conducted the Defence Procurement and Sustainment Review known as the
Mortimer Review in 2008.
The expert industry panel will include representatives
of DMO, Navy, the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and
Tertiary Education, Skills Australia, unions, the CEOs of the four principal Australian naval shipbuilding companies;
ASC, Austal, BAE Systems and Forgacs Engineering and the CEOs of the principal
naval systems integration companies: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Thales,
Saab Systems and BAE Systems.
This group will consult widely with State Governments,
Australian industry, industry associations, universities and other academic organisations
and think tanks to develop this plan. The Panel commenced their work last month
and the Plan will be presented to Government by the end of the year.