Sea Power: Creating a collaborative maintenance environment | ADM April 2012
Ken Grove | Adelaide
When considering naval support and through life management issues, information management is not necessarily the first topic that comes to mind. Yet it
provides the essential foundation for
effective sustainment and optimal platform availability.
Among the recommendations highlighted by Paul Rizzo in his ‘Plan to Reform Support, Ship Repair & Management Practices’ the report states that effective integrated information management is needed for efficient sustainment and taut configuration management. In addition it emphasised the need to improve co-ordination and integration between Navy and DMO, and with industry – of which information sharing is again a vital part.
Indeed, two of the Rizzo Report recommendations relate directly to this subject matter. One highlights the need to remediate current Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system shortcomings, pointing out that ‘Navy should lead work to define and then drive remediation in the information management systems for maritime engineering and maintenance’, while another underlines the need for more effective information exchange, stating ‘Navy and DMO must improve their internal reporting by capturing direct, timely and candid, document-based information that draws on a rigorous set of metrics.’
Importantly, experience shows that improved information management across the extended enterprise between governments, Navy and their industrial partners can be achieved. This can be provided through a so-called ‘Collaborative Working Environment’ (CWE) that fully exploits existing databases, systems and processes, with the opportunity both to share information securely and to automate processes across the maritime enterprise to improve efficiency and provide increased assurance with a ‘single point of truth’.
Addressing complexities
Given the number of different processes, systems, and applications involved relating to information and data on different aspects of the lifecycle management of platforms or equipment, and the multitude of different databases and information sources within any one project or program covering both engineering and business information, the need for effective co-ordination and management is evident.
Yet achieving this is a complex process. Information management for Amphibious and Afloat Support ships illustrates the problem, for instance, involving the maintenance planning system, configuration management system, spares management system, and the information and communication technology infrastructure on which they operate, plus the maintenance data, all of which could, when collated in a CWE, provide usable data for effective decision-making.
The Rizzo Report identifies that this system currently suffers from cumbersome and slow system usability, poor data integrity and management of changes in configuration, potential for error in data exchange between the systems (done manually), and a lack of overall system owner, leading to a lack of user confidence. Yet, as the Rizzo Report also states, ‘Management of the condition of a modern naval ship requires an effective integrated information management system, through which platform configuration can be monitored and recorded, maintenance planned and recorded, and spares holdings controlled’.
While some initiatives are in place to address this, more is needed. An effective toolkit is vital, not just to meet the need to share information effectively and efficiently but, further, to exploit the data available to drive out inefficiencies and speed up processes, monitor trends, enhance through-life management, and ultimately drive down cost of ownership.
Integrating information management
In essence, a CWE, which has been proven to be highly successful in the UK for example, provides a secure web-based workspace for members of disparate organisations to work together within a single, secure environment. Existing database applications are connected to create an integrated solution, transforming paper-based processes, and providing instant access to project, design, configuration and defect information whenever and wherever it is needed.
Broadly it comprises five key aspects: a single sign-on portal (integrating key government, Navy and/or industry systems); a business process automation workflow toolkit (enabling rapid development of new automated processes); an advanced secure document management vault; an ‘open architecture’ interface to ingest data from various systems; and a business intelligence data mining and reporting tool.
Effectively, as an integrated toolset this provides a core information hub, able to manage information at all classification levels, with access and security managed at community, project and/or user level. Users each have single-point access to the full depth and breadth of information to meet their needs, while avoiding the danger of ‘drowning in information’.
Importantly, Babcock has developed CWE as a centralised resource, providing the ability to share data effectively and also to design new, enterprise-wide end-to-end business processes. Government and industry IT systems feed data and information in to the CWE as a trusted data source (with its secure document management vault, business intelligence reporting and full audit trail for all files), in turn enabling development of electronic enterprise workflow processes (using the business process automation work-flow toolkit).
In short, the CWE is able to address the need for integrated information management systems for maritime engineering and maintenance. At the same time, it provides a valuable tool to aid improved enterprise-wide communication and transformation, with the opportunity to design new, automated, end-to-end pan-enterprise processes for greater coherency and more ‘trusted’ information, while bridging multi-organisational infrastructure constraints. It can generate reports on persistent bottlenecks for management action, as well as feeding other core systems with live, reliable data, while providing a fully auditable record of each transaction.
Moreover, it can capture decision-making information to form a future knowledge base, capture root cause information to identify trends, and provide business intelligence reports using trusted information sources – all valuable capabilities aiding effective business transformation.
A CWE can be established by introduction of application software which allows existing databases held by Navy, Defence and industry to be connected. Data can be extracted and inserted to support the range of sustainment processes. While significant benefits can be achieved by retrospectively connecting databases it is obvious that the establishment of an Integrated Data Management solution should be a key component of any new build project.
Proven Approach
In the UK the concept was originally developed by Babcock in partnership with the Ministry of Defence (MoD)’s Submarine Support project team, to review and improve the refitting process of the first-of-class HMS Vanguard, and demonstrated significant benefits. Over a period of 12 years, it has since been further developed into a comprehensive collaborative toolset supporting alliance working across a large and multi-partnered enterprise. Babcock manages the CWE with, to date, over 4,000 users and over 50 communities, including the Submarine Support Enterprise, Surface Ship Support Alliance, and Design Support Alliance, among others. It is now used by the UK MoD to share data and systems with all its Tier 1 industry partners including Babcock, BAE Systems and Rolls Royce, on a wide range of new build and in-service programs in the maritime sector.
In short, adopting an enterprise-level approach with a proven collaborative working environment capability has the potential to significantly reduce through-life support costs, while gaining greater coherence and improvement in quality across the maritime domain, addressing many of the information management and communication issues highlighted in the Rizzo Report.
Having a CWE and common systems, interfaces, and reporting capabilities enables valuable knowledge that would traditionally have been lost to be collected, stored and shared.