Navy – Mapping complexity to attain materiel seaworthiness compliance

BACKGROUND

The Rizzo Report published findings as a result of an investigation into the seaworthiness of naval vessels. Amongst the recommendations to ensure appropriate management of the repair and maintenance of maritime materiel, the Report considered how its proposed reforms should be applied.

One of those outcomes was the development of the Materiel Seaworthiness Functional Master Set (MSwFMS). The intent of the MSwFMS is to describe the main functions that are required to deliver seaworthy materiel, across the Navy’s fleet.

APPROACH

The various governance and assurance structures that grew out of the recommendations for the Rizzo Report are numerous and complex. They include thousands of pages of doctrine, compliance obligations, policies and functions. Shoal mapped all these items to form a baseline understanding of what, organisationally, the Navy needed to do in order to be capable of delivering seaworthy materiel. This mapping was undertaken using Shoal’s Model-Based Systems Engineering practices, such that the Naval organisations (SPOs) could clearly understand how their activities traced to compliance metrics defined in Navy doctrine and policy.

SOLUTION

As a result of this collaborative work, the Navy now has a tangible way to articulate how best practice engineering and asset management should be undertaken. Additionally, each ship class has a means by which they can measure themselves against this standard and focus on closing any gaps.