Logistics Engineering and Project Management solutions for the Collins Class Submarine.

NOVENTUS ROLE

Our Client engaged Noventus to provide a team of Logistics Engineers, Obsolescence Engineers and a Project Manager to assist with the development of their Asset Management and Obsolescence Engineering process.

The Business Need

Noventus was engaged (on a fixed price basis) to propose a system for “asset managing” the top 20 Collins Class Submarine systems that are creating the major reduction in Materiel Ready Days (MRD) using ten ILS and other relevant supportability analysis elements.

Additionally, the planned service life / Life of Type (LOT) of the Collins Class Submarines were beginning to significantly exceed the design life of the electronics, and electro-mechanical systems and components used within them.

Traditional approaches to manage and sustain these systems and components had become increasingly ineffective and costly. Accordingly our client engaged Noventus to investigate the interrelated concerns of obsolescence and reliability of these systems/components, investigate, identify, report on, and remediate critical obsolescence concerns.

The Noventus Solution

Asset Management

As part of the Asset Management Review, Noventus was provided with a range of client and submarine information as outlined in the scope of work. The Noventus team conducted a comprehensive analysis of the following ILS parameters:

• Operating Time
• Reliability Estimates
• Usage Upkeep Cycles
• Maintenance
• Sparing
• Obsolescence
• Personnel / Training
• Level Of Repair Analysis (LORA)
• Awareness
• Autonomous Logistics Support and
• Cannibalization

There were 16 Asset Management Review outcomes.

Obsolescence Engineering

To resolve specific obsolescence issues, Noventus mobilised a team of 6 obsolescence engineering and logistics specialists, and a project manager, who provided the following benefits:

• Life Of Type / Bridge Buy solutions to support total demands for the life of the impacted systems/equipment
• Encourage Existing Sources, which involved convincing the existing supplier source to continue production of the obsolescence parts
• Identification of Alternate Sources which was the most appropriate option in some instances where the obsolescence problem occurs at either the equipment or component level, and the LOT demand is projected to be high cost
• Reclamation and Cannibalisation solutions were considered primarily to resolve urgent or critical obsolescence situations, as a short term resolution alternative, or in cases where remaining LOT demand was minimal
• Reverse Engineering were suggested in instances where there is insufficient technical data or data rights to support re-procurement through the original source
• Modification or Redesign solutions which were used as a last resort when all other resolutions were examined and exhausted
• Redefinition of Requirements to accept COTS parts
• Identification of Alternate parts may perform satisfactorily in place of the obsolete parts
• Repair / Maintenance Of Parts – that were identified as LRU or RI’s through the ILS process and are deemed repairable reduces the risk of obsolescence and
• Contractor Maintained Inventory, which required our client to implement contractual agreements to maintain an inventory of obsolete items for future customer needs

Other supporting outcomes included data mining and document management support to the Submarine Service Life Evaluation Program. Achievements included analysing and extracting records from various data sources (contained within Excel spreadsheets) to prepare data reports for various Submarine subsystems. Data reports were provided to Submarine Design and Engineering subject matter experts to perform detailed assessments.

Document management support was provided to establish and process the above documents through the formal review process. This included performing initial reviews on each document to ensure formatting and content structure satisfied required criteria for the assessments. Activity was performed within the Product Lifecycle Management Tool (PLM) ENOVIA Matrix 10.