SEA 1408 Phase 2 looks like any mid-sized project coming out of Defence at the moment.
Tender documentation says that it aims to “address the required defence capability to complete the provision of Torpedo Self-Defence Systems (TSDS) across Surface Combatants and Amphibious and Afloat Support Group (AASG) platforms that will offer a level of protective measures that reduce the significant threat and growing risk from proliferating heavy weight torpedoes and to provide improved freedom of movement and operational tasking”.
It’s hardly worth writing home about when the whole project is around the $50 million mark and probably won’t make it in front of Cabinet until late 2011.
But then it wouldn’t warrant a mention here if all was business as usual.
The Capability Development Group (CDG) project office issued an RFP for Sea 1408 Phase 2 in October 2010, which closed in mid December, with the following factors to consider:
• There have been no industry briefs.
• The project is before the first pass milestone.
• The project office cannot confirm which ships the project will cover apart from HMA Ships Sirius and Success, two FFGs and possibly another 10 ships ie Anzacs.
• For a project that seeks to equip existing ships with a MOTS solution, there is no mention of the word ‘integration’ anywhere.
• The Spherion CTD from Thales and DSTO will be used in some way, in relation to the hull-mounted sonar.
• DMO is nowhere to be seen despite ASDEFCON templates being employed from the word go (precluding any collaboration on the industry front, Defence Week wonders).
After ADM spoke to the CDG office these concerns were addressed in part.
The office felt that industry days were not needed given that they are seeking an off–the-shelf solution that is in no way developmental.
Given the cost and schedule restrictions in place, timeliness was the aim of the approach in play.
In terms of ships covered by the project, the office has yet to confirm with Navy when the ships in question will be available for upgrade work.
When it came to integration issues, the office sees no reason as to why they should open this particular can of worms because the towed countermeasures will be a plug-and-play system and the Anzac Alliance covers all integration work for that platform.
Commercial in confidence reasons come into play when dealing with the CTD aspect of the project.
DMO was involved in the early stages of the project.
They were part of the ORC that scoped the project and intimately involved in the IPT that agreed to the RFP with its Statement of Work.
DMO will be part of the future project process leading to 1st and 2nd pass.
ADM suspects that the Thales Sea Defender and Ultra Electronics Sea Sentor systems are contenders - both are already in service with other navies.
Saab Systems and Thales may also have a decent chance at an integration role given that the Anzacs and FFGs are in the mix.
But the question remains – why did CDG go straight to an RFP at this stage of the game?
ADM understands that the project is being used as an unofficial test case for changing the game, as it were, between the lines separating DMO and CDG.
Stay tuned.