Hans

There would be no Collins submarine program without Hans.

In this new effort he tries to tell us where some of the bodies are buried in regard to replacing the Collins-class submarine. Read all of it.

The confidence displayed by the Japanese may well be based on their belief that the Abe Government has a firm agreement with Australia to build the FSP in Japan. But for retired VADM Masao Kobayashi to suggest that ASC ‘don’t have enough skilled workers to fashion the high tension steel’, which even the Japanese find challenging, is an assertion without foundation. ASC and other Australian companies have demonstrable experience in working with exotic high tensile steels. If the naval shipyards of Japan can replicate the dimensional accuracy and weld quality attained by ASC during the construction of the six Collins-class boats, then both they and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force should be well pleased with themselves.

Notwithstanding the past performance of ASC, it’s doubtful whether the company has retained the technical skills that it built in the 1990s. While the AWD debacle and the poor operational availability of the Collins is not the sole responsibility of the company, the ASC of today is but a shadow of the submarine builder that it was 15 years ago. ASC’s shareholder, its board and its senior management have much to answer for in reducing ASC to its current state.

ASC’s decline began at the point that the Collins boats were completed in 2002. The RAN wanted a different, less commercial relationship with the company. The strict contractual terms between ASC and the DMO that were administered under a lump sum engineering and procurement contract, were replaced by a cosier relationship. The Department of Defence had convinced the Government to nationalise ASC and by releasing the designer (Kockums), the combat systems supplier (Boeing), and the constructor (ASC) from their respective contractual obligations, responsibility for latent defects, maintenance and operational improvements all fell to the Department.

As the shareholder of ASC, the Department of Finance appoints the Board, who while well-endowed with commercial, legal and political experience, completely lack expertise in naval design and shipbuilding. The Board has appointed four Managing Directors and six interim CEOS following the Commonwealth assumption of ownership in 2001. More recently, CEO and Managing Director Steve Ludlam cut short his five year contract, reportedly on the basis of a lack of support from the board. Alex Walsh, who replaced ASC’s veteran Engineering Manager, Jack Atkinson, some eighteen months ago, has also returned to the UK. Thus the two most senior roles in ASC are temporary appointees. And it’s the Commonwealth, not the ASC Board that has now commissioned an executive search firm to recruit a new ‘General Manager – Submarines’. Meanwhile, ASC has initiated a manpower reduction program in its submarine division, and the AWD management team is being replaced with people from the US, the UK, Spain and elsewhere.

Will the current malaise lead to the demise of ASC? It should not and it must not. A world-class shipbuilding facility with dedicated staff and a skilled workforce—one that’s capable of welding any steel that the Japanese mills can produce—is the foundation for the Future Submarine Project and the key component of its success.

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