Project

Explanation

Background

The project's implementation phase commenced in June 1999, when the Prime Contract with Australian Defence Industry (now Thales Australia) was signed. The contract provides for Thales to have total contract performance responsibility and sole responsibility for the upgrade of each FFG. The role of the Systems Program Office in relation to the technical aspects of the upgrade has been, and is generally limited to, reviewing and commenting upon the activities proposed to be conducted by the prime contractor.

As a result of the contractor taking substantially longer than the original schedule, the project was re-baselined in April 2004 and again in May 2006. The re-baselining deferred the delivery of all FFGs with the last ship being deferred by four and a half years.

In November 2003 the Government determined that the Guided Missile Frigate fleet would be reduced from six to four ships with the two oldest FFGs to be removed from service, prior to their planned upgrade and life extension. In mid 2006 the prime contract was changed with scope reduced from six to four ships (oldest FFGs, HMA Ships Adelaide and Canberra not upgraded), settlement of delay claims, changes to the master schedule and milestones, and changes to provisional acceptance processes of upgraded ships from the prime contractor all contributed to the delays. The financial impact of this global settlement was reflected by a reduction in prime contract price of $40m. This recognises the engineering development investment and six ship sets of equipment were not affected by the reduction in the number of upgraded ships from six to four.

Subsequent difficulties with compliance led the Commonwealth to refuse approval of contractors test procedures. In April 2005 Thales elected to proceed 'at its own risk'

with a test and trial regime outside of the contractual terms. The contractor saw this as the only feasible approach to completing the project.

The complexity of the program was initially underestimated. The performance specifications were not formalised and agreed before contract signature and this has impacted the delivery and agreement of the offered capability and development of the test program.

Nonetheless, significant progress has resulted in the achievement of contractual acceptance of all four FFGs and facilitated the decision by the CN to approve IOR of this capability and begin planning for its operational employment. All four FFGs were offered for IOR in November 2009 and CN endorsed the IOR in January 2010 with a caveat on the Torpedo Defence System. Also, the Government agreed to remove the FFG Upgrade Project, from the list of Projects of Concern as the issues and problems that had made it a Project of Concern were remediated sufficiently that a path to completion is clearly defined.

The RAN has inducted the FFGs into a formal program of NOTE to fully characterise the performance of the ships in a variety of contemporary operational environments. HMAS Sydney is lead ship for this program with further testing completed third quarter 2010 and second quarter 2011. This Test & Evaluation program supports the tuning, configuration and augmentation of the systems in ships deploying into operational areas to ensure that they have the best available capability to meet the threats in those regions. NOTE is scheduled to complete in the fourth quarter of 2011 and recommendation for Operational Release of the full FFG Upgraded capability (four upgraded ships and support systems) will be considered by CN at that time.

Uniqueness

This project presents challenges due to the complex and extensive weapon, sensor, combat, and command and control systems upgrades that are required to be integrated into an Australian developed combat data system architecture. The integration work includes the world's first FFG installation of a Vertical Launching System for firing Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles and Mk 92 Mod 12 fire control system into the Adelaide class FFG.

The FFG upgrade project includes the development of the Australian Distributed Architecture Combat System, which contains over one million source lines of newly developed computer code. This software development is occurring in conjunction with electronic system hardware development and integration. The Australian Distributed Architecture Combat System processes and displays radar, sonar and electronic support system data, assisted by a new Australian developed Radar Integrated Automatic Detection and Tracking system.

Major Challenges

Significant challenges were progressed in conjunction with progressive delivery of the capability.

Initial Operational Release for the upgrade capability was approved by CN in January 2010 with the exception of the Torpedo Defence System and, by association, the Le Scut torpedo decoy, as the effectiveness of the decoy is dependent upon information provided by the torpedo detection and classification system.

This decision initiated the next significant challenge of NOTE of the delivered FFG capabilities. This is a period in which the operational effectiveness, suitability and the attendant levels of risk associated with operating the ships in a wide variety of roles will be defined.

Also the acquisition and installation requirement for an underwater active decoy system was initiated to satisfy operational preparedness requirements but with due regard to the remaining service life of the ships of the class.

Other Current Projects/Sub-Projects

SEA 1390 Phase 4A: Purchase of the Mk698 Test Set for logistic support and all up round depot level maintenance of the Standard Missile 2 at Defence Estate Orchard Hills, Sydney.

SEA 1390 Phase 4B: Acquire and integrate the Standard Missile 2 into four RAN Adelaide Class FFGs at the Mid-Course Guidance standard, and acquisition of Initial Ship Outfit and Inventory Stock missiles.