An Roinn Cosanta Óglaigh na hÉireann
Department of Defence Defence Forces
Value for Money Review
Naval Service Vessel Maintenance
March 2009
PRN No. A9/0498
Table of Contents
List of Figures ii
List of Tables ii
Glossary of Abbreviations and Acronyms iii
Executive Summary v
1. Introduction 1
1.1 The Defence Organisation 1
1.2 Overview of Value for Money and Policy Review (VFMPR) Initiative 2
1.3 Review Scope and Terms of Reference 3
1.4 Methodology 5
1.5 Review Structure 6
2. Naval Service Vessel Maintenance Objectives 7
2.1 Programme Objectives 7
2.2 The White Paper on Defence (2000) 8
2.3 Strategy Statement 9
2.4 Delivery of Naval Service Vessel Outputs 11
2.5 Conclusion 12
3. Naval Service Vessel Maintenance Overview 13
3.1 Types of Maintenance 13
3.2 Units involved in Ships Maintenance 14
3.3 Maintenance Management Systems 15
3.4 Maintenance Execution 16
3.5 Maintenance Management and the Maintenance Cycle 17
4. Maintenance Activities, Costs and Outputs 20
4.1 Planning, Inspection & Maintenance Management Unit (PIMM) 20
4.2 Flotilla – Ships Crew 22
4.3 Mechanical Engineering and Naval Dockyard (MENDY) 25
4.4 Weapons Electrical Unit 28
4.5 Contracted Maintenance 31
4.6 Inventory 34
4.7 Infrastructure 37
4.8 Cost Overview 38
4.9 Conclusions and Recommendations 39
5. Effectiveness of Maintenance 41
5.1 Maintenance Performance 41
5.2 Maintenance Management Function 42
5.3 Benchmarking 43
5.4 Recommendations 47
6. Performance Monitoring System 50
6.1 Performance Monitoring System 50
Appendix 1 Naval Service Organisation 58
APPENDIX 2 NAVAL SERVICE FLOTILLA 60
APPENDIX 3 Programme Logic Model 68
List of Figures
Figure 2.1 Naval Service Patrol Days 1999 – 2006 11
Figure 3.1 The Maintenance Management Cycle 18
Figure 3.2 Maintenance Management Overview 19
Figure 4.1 Expenditure on Equipment Installed by WEU 2003 to 2006 29
Figure 4.2 Contracted Maintenance Costs 2003 - 2006 31
Figure 4.3 Maintenance Inventory Management 34
Figure 4.4 Cost of Maintenance Inventory Purchased 2003 – 2006 35
Figure 4.5 Infrastructure Upgrade Costs 2003 - 2006 37
Figure 5.1 Acquisition Team Process 45
Figure 5.2 Revised Maintenance Management Process 49
Figure 6.1 Recommended Performance Indicators 52
List of Tables
Table 4.1 MMS Strength 20
Table 4.2 Maintenance Personnel on each Naval Service Ship as June 2006 23
Table 4.3 Maintenance Personnel Costs for each Naval Service Ship 2006 23
Table 4.4 Personnel Costs for MENDY 2006 25
Table 4.5 Personnel Employed in WEU (2006) 29
Table 4.6 Expenditure on Equipment Installed by WEU 2003 to 2006 30
Table 4.7 Contracted Maintenance Costs 2003 - 2006 32
Table 4.8 Military and Civilian Staff Employed in Tech Stores as at June 2006 35
Table 4.9 Cost of Maintenance Inventory Purchased 2003 – 2006 36
Table 4.10 Current Infrastructure Upgrade Costs 2003 - 2006 37
Table 4.11 Utility Costs 2003 – 2006 38
Table 4.12 Overall Naval Service Vessel Maintenance Costs for 2006. 39
Table 5.1 Percentage of Time Operational or Available at 8 Hours Notice 42
Table 5.2 Breakdown of Naval Service Patrol Days 2003 - 2006 42
Table 5.3 Fleet Days Lost Due to Unscheduled Maintenance 42
Glossary of Abbreviations and Acronyms
A-Team / Acquisition TeamAMOS / Automated Maintenance on Ships
ATCA / Aid to the Civil Authority
ATCP / Aid to the Civil Power
BSC / Balanced Score Card
CBM / Conditioned Based Maintenance
COS / Chief of Staff
CPVs / Coastal Patrol Vessel
D COS (Sp) / Deputy Chief of Staff (Support)
DFHQ / Defence Forces Headquarters
DoD / Department of Defence
EAG / Efficiency Audit Group
EAM / Enterprise Asset Management
ERI / Expenditure Review Initiative
ESDP / European Security & Defence Policy
FOCNS / Flag Officer Commanding the Naval Service
FSG / Fleet Support Group
FSL / Fleet Support Limited
GMES / Global Monitoring for Environment & Security
GOC / General Officer Commanding
GPMG / General Purpose Machine Gun
HMG / Heavy Machine Gun
HPV / Helicopter Patrol Vessel
HQ / Headquarters
IMO / International Maritime Organisation
IMS / Inventory Management System
IRCG / Irish Coast Guard
ISPS Code / International Ship & Port Facilities Security Code
LE / Long Éireanach
LIMES / Land & Sea Integrated Monitoring for European Security
MARISS / Maritime Security & Surveillance
MARPOL / International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships
MENDY / Mechanical Engineering Naval Dockyard
MEO / Mechanical Engineering Officer
MIF / Management Information Framework
MINS / Marine Internal Navigation System
MLC / Maintenance & Logistics Command
MMS / Maintenance Management Section
MMT / Maintenance Management Team
MMU / Maintenance Management Unit
MOU / Memorandum of Understanding
NDY / Naval Dockyard
NESU / Naval Engineering Support Unit
NS / Naval Service
NSC / Naval Support Command
NSL / Northwest Ship Repairers and Shipbuilders
OC / Officer Commanding
OIC / Officer in Charge
OPVs / Offshore Patrol Vessel
PDF / Permanent Defence Force
PIMM / Planning, Inspection and Maintenance Management Unit
PMS / Personnel Management System
PPM / Planned Preventative Maintenance
RDF / Reserve Defence Force
RFA / Royal Fleet Auxiliary
RN / Royal Navy
RPII / Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland
SLA / Service Level Agreement
SMC / Strategic Management Committee
SMI / Strategic Management Initiative
SOLAS / International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea
UCM / Unscheduled Corrective Maintenance
UNCLOS / United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
USCG / United States Coast Guard
VFM / Value for Money
VFMPR / Value for Money and Policy Review
VFMPRCSC / Value for Money and Policy Review Central Steering Committee
WMEC / Medium Endurance Cutters
Executive Summary
The Naval Service provides the maritime element of the State’s Defence Forces. The Naval Service has an authorised strength of 1,144 and operates a flotilla of eight ships that are based in the State’s single Naval Base at Haulbowline in Co. Cork.
This Review examines all of the vessel maintenance activities required for vessels to achieve operational readiness and deployment targets, including maintenance of hulls, weapons, electrics, electronics and machinery. The Review encompasses the period 2003 – 2006 inclusive.
Each of the terms of reference is now taken in turn and the key findings outlined:
TOR 1. Identify Naval Service vessel maintenance objectives.
TOR 2. Examine the current validity of those objectives and their compatibility with the overall strategy.
The objective of Naval Service vessel maintenance is:
“to preserve Naval Service vessels in a determined state or condition[1], or to restore Naval Service vessels to a determined state or condition, in order to meet operational readiness and deployment targets.”
The Steering Committee found that the objectives of Naval Service vessel maintenance are clearly specified, remain valid and are directly linked to overall strategic goals.
TOR 3. Define the outputs associated with Naval Service vessel maintenance activity and identify the level and trend of those outputs.
The Steering Committee found that although quantifiable in a broad sense, detailed information relating to the outputs of military and civilian personnel in each of the Units involved in maintenance was unavailable. This lead to specific difficulties in assessing the efficiency of personnel involved in conducting maintenance tasks. The Steering Committee found that the recording of staff time spent on specific maintenance tasks was not in operation for military personnel. Although a job-card system was in operation for civilian maintenance personnel working in the Dockyard in practice multiple jobs were frequently aggregated into a single job number, which prevented the benchmarking of specific maintenance tasks with standard times utilised for such tasks by comparative organisations or equipment manufacturers.
The Steering Committee noted that the Naval Service are currently addressing these issues through refining the usage of job cards and the introduction of the Enterprise Assets Management (EAM) module of the Management Information Framework (MIF). Whilst the refined usage of job-cards will yield immediate results, the introduction of EAM is currently being piloted and although it is anticipated that EAM will address the issues outlined above, this will not be confirmed until the pilot project is evaluated.
TOR 4. Examine the extent that Naval Service vessel maintenance objectives have been achieved, and comment on effectiveness.
The Steering Committee found that maintenance outputs are meeting the objectives of Naval Service vessel maintenance. This was confirmed by the fact that operational readiness and deployment targets are being achieved to a high level and a low incidence of unscheduled maintenance resulting in lost patrol days.
The Steering Committee agreed that the current maintenance management structures in the Naval Service provide a sound basis for effective maintenance management. Implementation of the recommendations requiring improvements to management information is critical to improving the performance management of the maintenance function.
The Steering Committee agreed that co-ordination at a higher level of all available maintenance resources coupled with improved performance measurement data will significantly improve the effectiveness of maintenance management in the Naval Service. The Steering Committee recommends the re-configuration of the current system into a dedicated maintenance management team (MMT), with responsibility for the centralised co-ordination of maintenance execution.
TOR 5. Identify the level and trend of costs and staffing resources associated with Naval Service vessel maintenance and thus comment on the efficiency with which it has achieved its objectives.
Each of the units involved in undertaking activities that contribute to Naval Service vessel maintenance were identified and costed. These costs include personnel pay costs, inventory costs, infrastructure costs and the cost of contracted maintenance.
The Steering Committee found that the staffing levels remained relatively constant over the Review period. Costs for 2006 are outlined below:
Maintenance Costs / 2006Staff Costs
PIMM / €646,800
Flotilla / €3,151,523
MENDY
- Military (FSG) / €2,153,850
- Civilian / €2,743,891
WEU / €1,753,080
Tech Stores
- Military / €299,845
- Civilian / €329,553
Equipment, Contracted Maintenance & Inventory
WEU Equipment installed / €289,665Contracted Maintenance / €2,960,347
Inventory / €3,006,583
Infrastructure
Current / €14,386
Utility Costs / €58,873
Total / €17,408,396
As previously outlined, the Steering Committee found that detailed information relating to the outputs of military and civilian personnel in each of the Units involved in maintenance was unavailable. This lead to specific difficulties in assessing the efficiency of personnel involved in conducting maintenance tasks
The Steering Committee recommends that the capture of staff time on maintenance activities and the introduction of standard times for all maintenance tasks be introduced for all maintenance personnel involved in vessel maintenance in the Naval Service both military and civilian. This will facilitate better performance management of personnel resources. In the interim period whilst EAM is being piloted, job cards should be introduced for military personnel.
The Steering Committee found that data that isolated inputs such as inventory or contracted services, on a ship-by-ship basis, was difficult to access. The Steering Committee noted that assigning costs to the relevant cost centre would significantly improve the accessibility of maintenance costs on a ship-by-ship basis. The Steering Committee noted that this issue is currently being addressed in the context of the implementation of Phase II of the MIF.
The Steering Committee found that military maintenance personnel in both FSG and WEU Unit were also tasked with performing sea relief duties and other military tasks. The Steering Committee accepts that such requirements are unavoidable but recommends that the Naval Service critically review the management of such taskings with a view to improving planning certainty for the availability of maintenance personnel when scheduling major maintenance activities.
In light of the unavailability of performance information to assess efficiency, the Steering Committee recommends that an ongoing review of Naval Service vessel maintenance be conducted as implementation of review recommendations occurs and such information becomes available.
TOR 6. Evaluate the degree to which the objectives warrant the allocation of public funding on a current and ongoing basis and examine the scope for alternative policy or organisational approaches to achieving these objectives in a more efficient and / or effective basis (e.g. through international comparison).
As outlined above, the objectives of Naval Service Vessel Maintenance are clearly specified, remain valid and are directly linked to Strategic Goals. The Review examined practices in the US Coastguard and Arklow Shipping and recommendations arising from this examination have been outlined above. The Steering Committee recommends that the Naval Service should continue to investigate, identify and implement the most cost effective and efficient means of vessel maintenance available including contracting out of maintenance tasks where appropriate.
TOR 7. Specify potential future performance indicators that might be used to better monitor the performance of Naval Service vessel maintenance.
Appropriate performance indicators that complement the Naval Service’s Balanced Scorecard system were identified and agreed with the Naval Service.
i
1. Introduction
1.1 The Defence Organisation[2]
The mission of the Department of Defence and Defence Forces is:
“To provide for the military defence of the State, contribute to national and international peace and security and fulfil all other roles assigned by Government”[3]
The Department of Defence comprises civil and military elements with a total of 650 personnel. Of this number 380 (whole time equivalents) are civil servants and 270 are military personnel. The military personnel constitute Defence Forces Headquarters (DFHQ). In addition, in the order of 850 civilian employees are employed throughout the Defence Forces. These civilian employees provide a range of general operative, trades and other services in military installations.
The primary role of the Department is to support the Minister as Head of the Department, in particular by providing policy advice and support on Defence matters. This includes assistance with policy formulation and the implementation of policy as directed by the Minister. The Secretary General is the Minister’s principal defence policy advisor and the Chief of Staff (COS) is the Minister’s principal military adviser.
Defence Forces
The Defence Forces are organised on conventional military lines providing a sufficiently flexible structure to carry out all the roles assigned by Government. The Defence Forces consist of a Permanent Defence Force (PDF) and a Reserve Defence Force (RDF).