Last November, Vanguard media hosted the 5th annual Deep Blue Forum in Ottawa, the theme was – Preparing for the in-Country Support of a New Submarine. The first panel focused on in-service support recognizing that submarines are the most complex and sophisticated platform built. As noted through the discussion, in-service support is one of the hardest jobs out there. It deals with a number of large ticket aspects such as budget constraints, resource constraints, supply chain challenges, tech obsolescence, workforce management and training.
Adopting a plan for a holistic approach to asset management would likely deliver significant benefits to in-service support for a new class of submarines.
Cdr Hunt: Marty, what are the top sustainment capabilities we need to have in Canada to support the submarine fleet now and into the future? What elements do we have now that are succeeding, that we should keep? What areas do you think we should focus on for improvement?
Martin Drews: I think when we look at this question, we must approach it from the perspective of the worst-possible scenario. And that is a scenario where global supply chains are disrupted because of a longer, larger conflict where global sea lanes are contested. To address this as we’ve seen in Ukraine and back to the Second World War, you must put your in-service support capabilities as far away from the conflict zone as possible. But the solution is not straightforward. Global supply chains and economic interdependencies make it difficult. The answer needs to come from a real, honest risk-based assessment of what that future potential conflict or conflicts will look like and then allow that to guide us.
That said, I don’t think it makes any sense whatsoever to maintain the submarines away from Canada. Third line maintenance is something I suggest that absolutely has to be in Canada. And I would never see a future, as a CO of the FMF, where there’ll be any erosion of the FMF’s current strategic support to the RCN.
So, to your question more directly, what does it mean and what elements do we keep close to Canada? I would start by looking at we’re doing really well. I think that our in-service support first to third-line approach is actually pretty good. Having worked in NATO in other countries, I think it’s pretty admired by other navies. Maybe not working for the submarines, but in general that’s a pretty good model. And it was validated by the naval engineering and maintenance strategic initiative back in 2017. It described how industry should play an important role in specific types of maintenance, dockings, major refits, and asserted that the FMFs really have this strategic role. They need to be agile; they need to be operationally focused and there needs to be this balance of cooperation between industry, the shipyards and the FMFs. They can’t compete with one another. So, I would say that as a backdrop, that first to third-line maintenance approach assures resilience and operational availability while being cost effective.
The second point I’d suggest is supply chains. It must be Canadian. We need access to those critical pieces of equipment. We need to minimize the impact of being held to somebody else’s repair and overhaul pipelines. I saw this on the east coast when I was part of fleet readiness, waiting for things to come out of that R&O pipeline as they’re sent far away. We want to minimize that impact. We don’t want to be paying $200 for screws either, especially if they can just be found at Home Depot. And more importantly than in those examples is making sure that we have the supporting policies, process materials and trade to support Canadian tradespeople to execute the work in Canada.
Probably the biggest lesson we learned through the upholder experience is that we Canadianized the submarine, but we didn’t Canadianize all those other pieces. The policies, the process, the qualifications. We didn’t allow the Canadians to do work here in Canada. So, I think that certainly needs improvement.
In short, I would say that from a domestic sovereignty perspective, you need to invest in those things that would take a lot of time to build. And if access to them in the lead up to, or in times of conflict, would inhibit the Navy’s ability to force generate and sustain submarine forces that’s where you really got to focus your attention.
You just can’t forget that submarines, by their very nature, are strategic assets to every Navy of the world. And because of that we must keep them close.
Cdr Hunt: Peter, how can Canada better engage and utilize the resident skills that we have across the country to grow the workforce and support the submarine industrial base? How do we recruit, train and retain an engaged and productive submarine workforce?
Peter Karounos: I would start off by saying every industry out there whether it’s the submarine community or the auto, is competing for the same group of resources. I would say you start off with the need to cultivate, invest and maintain the workforce you have. An in-service submarine logistics expert is to me like a crown jewel. And in-service, they work on supply, training, maintenance, provisioning, tech insertion, upgrades and improvements that are coming into the systems on submarines. And they’re being recruited by everyone. I lost one of my crown jewels to Amazon. I couldn’t compete with them based on salary. So, anything you can do to keep your current workforce involved and engaged in submarines is important.
When you look at how to build a workforce, you have to go after every element across the spectrum. And it starts with high schools going in and talking to young people. And for those that maybe aren’t planning on going to university, understanding that coming into the submarine program and going to a trade school would be a great career move for them. It would be fulfilling; it would be a good quality of a life for them and their family. So that would be one arena that you have to focus on. Collaborate with high schools and get involved with recruiting at that young age.
Then you look at universities. As an engineer, it takes four years to go through engineering school, so cultivating students in college is important. At Serco we run the U.S. Navy’s team submarine intern program where we bring 25 to 30 interns every summer into our Serco spaces. They’re Serco employees, we get their clearance, and we integrate them in with the program offices across all the in-service elements to teach them about submarine in-service acquisition. Walking onto a submarine is kind of an eye-opener for them. About 80 per cent of last summer’s class came to join us in the submarine program when they graduated. So, we are a training platform industry, we’re a trusted agent, and we’re the inner circle of the submarine community.
And then there’s immigration. You got an influx of people coming in for a new start or success in their lives. We need to see how we can bring them into the mix to support the submarine program.
Cdr Hunt: Gord, we’ve talked a little bit about asset management, but I’d like to dive deeper, pun intended, on that topic and talk a little bit about how we currently define it in the sustainment enterprise that we have. How do you think we should rethink it to make it better in the future and increase our submarine availability? And how does it fit into the ISS future planning?
Gordon Szczepski: Based on my experience, I think we’ve got an extremely narrow vision of what asset management means in terms of in-service support. Most of my career in Victoria and prior to in the Navy was really focused on maintenance periods. It was focused on maintaining material certification and training. But it wasn’t looking at some of the other critical factors that lead to availability. I think that today there’s this amazing opportunity because we have 17 years of experience with the Victoria class to build upon. And we have the ability with this new program to adopt a more holistic approach so we can take the work we’ve already done, the achievements we’ve achieved, and build a structured approach that is all-encompassing.
I’ll build on what Peter said. How do you get people interested in submarines? I’m a product of the movie Red October, so more of that. We need to look at data management and employment. We need to make sure we have our facilities established and ready on both coasts. We really need to embrace technology. Technology is advancing at such a rapid pace, and it could be such an enabler for asset management.
And finally, we need to continue to nurture and to grow robust supply chains as Marty alluded to.
Cdr Hunt: Gord. I’d be interested to know, are there other examples that you’re seeing from your perspective that might be a good area to consider?
Gordon Szczepski: Yeah, absolutely. Fortunately, in my position and looking at some of the opportunities afforded by our global company, we’ve looked at asset management outside of a submarine enterprise construct and looked at some of the other applications. So, we’ve worked with firms like Sodexo and how they manage or how they conduct asset management for facilities like prisons or hospitals or large educational institutions. And what you find with those; they’ve got very well oiled and operated machines to conduct those asset management operations.
The problem comes with the complexities associated with military vessels, and in particular, the complexities of submarines. A model that is used to maintain hospital catering and custodial services and maintenance services and infrastructure is good. It’s something to use as a baseline, a starting point. But those models need to be expanded and need to include all the complex aspects of potentially an offshore constructed submarine with a highly complex sonar suite, with a highly complex weapons system, with a crew that needs to be trained to conduct their operations under some of the most arduous conditions known to man. And all of those pieces together mean that we have to take the opportunity now before the submarines arrive, to construct an asset management framework for in-service support that’ll bring all those pieces together in a holistic package. And we can start with some of those industry examples, but we can’t stop there. We have to go beyond that and build a solution that works for Canada and works for future submarines.
Cdr Hunt: How can we reconcile the differing motivations of industry and government regarding in-service support outcomes? Are these differences inherent, or can they be bridged?
Ian Krepps: That is a good question. If I was to draw the Venn diagram, there are motivations that are purely driven by industry and industry requirements. There are motivations that are purely driven by the customer, DND and RCN. But the good news is there is a lot of common ground between that Venn diagram. And I think that’s the area where we need to focus. What are the common objectives? I think as Canadians, it starts with making sure that the sailors of the RCN have platforms and war fighting capability that is available to them when needed. If we start from that, only good things can happen. When I look at unified in purpose and common objectives, it’s about maximizing the availability of those key strategic platforms for the RCN. And that’s where I would start, and I would draw inspiration from.
Cdr Hunt: What are your ideas as industry to grow the workforce in preparation for the submarine enterprise? How can the government aid and the growth?
Peter Karounos: One concept that recently came out of the U.S. is this private-public agreement with the Navy to work with a private equity company to build an industrial submarine facility to manufacture and build submarine components.
Think about that concept. It’s out of the box thinking. Twenty years ago, I ran the public affairs office for team submarine. Whenever they asked us about submarines, we were the silent service. We provided very minimum information. Now you look at it, we have www.buildsubmarines.com. You’re out there in the public space in the media trying to cover as much as possible. You sponsor Major League Baseball. My son went to the University of Alabama, Guess what? They have a good technical engineering program there. And the submarine community joined forces with the football program and the engineering school to create a build submarine entity there to bring young people graduating from engineering into the submarine program.
So maybe for Canada, find a hockey team and sponsor it, and perhaps set up a Canadian version of www.buildsubmarines.com.
Cdr Hunt: Noting DND’s limitations with their IT systems such as Defence cloud, DRMIS and its replacement DefenceX, how important will across organization data environment ready on day one be for CPSP ISS?
Gordon Szczepski: I would it’s a very submarine-like tactic to bring a question to the question, which is what is day one? So again, I think I go back this opportunity to put a plan in place, and I think those key assets, the IT systems, the means of communication that I mentioned are imperative to a collaborative, successful ISS construct. I would say day one needs to have some thought put behind it. But I think goes without saying that that type of approach is essential to successful ISS. I’ve seen significant change in how we took a submarine that arrived and then we tried to figure it out, and we’ve made significant steps. The integration of our company and my engineers with DRMIS is substantial. However, we need to do more. And I wouldn’t say that there are limitations around IT systems. There are known constraints. So put a bunch of smart people in the room and we can figure it out.
Cdr Hunt: Martin, did you have anything to add on that one?
Martin Drews : I do. I think it’s critically important you establish that and put that in place, so you hit the ground running. Absolutely. I would suggest also that IT solutions must be easy to use and we must train the people on how to use it. It’s great to deliver something, but if nobody knows how to use it, it’s a problem.
To my point about you have to hit the ground running, from the very first day that we get these submarines we want to absolutely maintain and understand the material state. We don’t want to lose track of where we are in the material state of the submarine. So having that IT system in place to document that from day one is critical in my opinion.
If I can just go back to that question about workforce development, because I really think that’s important to stress a little bit. One of the things I saw when I was in Australia was that they established long-term contractual relationships with key colleges and universities. I thought that was powerful. In an asset like this, capability goes far beyond just the defence industry. I think we really need to consider those key linkages to those colleges and years. I think it was Paul that mentioned that but it’s critical. I hate to quote Navy strategy, but fundamentally maritime nations are based on not just a robust navy, but on robust navy and merchant marine academic institutions that support it as a real ecosystem.
Cdr Hunt: Did you have anything to add there, Ian?
Ian Krepps: Yeah, It seems every major capital program today develops its own unique, and perhaps somewhat bespoke, integrated data environment (IDE) of some kind. I think getting back to lessons learned, perhaps there’s consideration for the existing IDEs or maturity of those IDE-like products that are already in place on existing programs. And perhaps it’s not about a data environment that’s dedicated to patrol submarines, but a data environment that’s enabled and oriented to sustaining the war fighting fleet of the Canadian Navy.
So that’s a big ask. That’s a requirement that crosscuts multiple programs. And getting back to stress testing the siloed project management framework that we all have to live in. I’d say that’s a challenge that is worth consideration. A single IDE to enable the sustainment of the RCN fleet.
Cdr Hunt: With up to 12 submarines, it will be imperative to have maintenance support on both the east and west coast. Do you think there will be a need to concentrate certain work periods to a specific coast, and can this challenge be overcome with a mobile workforce?
Peter Karounos: I think so. Our current workforce is not geographically located where submarine forces or shipyards are anymore. After COVID they’ve kind of spread around the country in their remote locations. So, putting the right teams together when you need them to fly in or be somewhere for short periods of time to satisfy a maintenance requirement or an upkeep or an upgrade, seems to work quite well. It’s cost effective. Industry doesn’t need a lot of infrastructure. Before we had like five floors of office space outside of the Washington Navy yard. We’re down to two because we’ve created a flexed workforce to put the right people together to be able to provide maintenance and not be burdened by a lot of infrastructure or having folks in specific locations.
The other thing is we have workforce that are part-time. They come in and out. They might be retired or don’t really want to work full-time, but they’ll come in for a few months here and there and support a submarine effort or entity or a test and evaluation or whatever it might be. So that’s another concept to take into consideration.
Cdr Hunt: Operational availability is crucial for a successful ISS for submarines. Can you comment on how performance-based contracting can be effectively used to sustain submarines while incorporating guaranteed minimum annual usage or nautical ones?
Ian Krepps: I think performance models first and foremost are tied to operational data. It’s also tied to how you instrument the data and the transactions and the interactions that happen in the maintenance and sustainment ecosystem from dockyard, supply chain, and specialist engineering. So, part of it is about instrumenting your digital ecosystem, developing key performance indicators, and over a period of time, determining how those KPIs drive an operational effect that is seen by the end user. You cannot do that at day zero or day one. It takes a transition period where you allow for that instrumentation. You allow for that data processing. I would say we probably have more time than we think to get the in-service support solution right. And I think moving forward with purpose and with momentum is key but also being patient and not rushing to failure or compromise. So, if you really want to get to a position where you have a performance-based contract, you’ve got to respect and carve out the necessary time and create the space for acquiring data, analyzing data, and then determining which of those KPIs or performance metrics are driving an operational effect for your customer.
Cdr Hunt: That’s great. Thank you very much to the four of you for letting me share the stage with you today and giving us some honest thoughts about what we’re up against today and what we might be up against in the future.