October 14, 2022 | Local, Naval
Construction of navy's new supply ship halted by strike — government unsure how shipbuilding strategy will be affected
The labour dispute has entered its second month.
October 21, 2018 | Local, Naval
Lockheed Martin selected as preferred designer for Canada's next generation of warships
Murray Brewster · CBC News
A group of companies led by multinational defence giant Lockheed Martin has been selected as the preferred designer for Canada's next generation of warships, the Liberal government said Friday.
The announcement that the group's BAE Type 26 design won the design competition represents a significant step forward for the long-anticipated $60-billion program to replace the navy's aging fleet of frigates.
"The Canadian Surface Combatant project is the largest, most complex procurement ever undertaken by the Government of Canada. These ships will form the backbone of our Royal Canadian Navy and will be Canada's major surface component of maritime combat power for decades to come," Public Services and Procurement Canada said in a press release.
Procurement and defence officials say this is not the final step; they will now enter into negotiations with the winning bidder to confirm it can deliver everything promised in the complex proposal. (Some observers have compared the process to placing a conditional offer on a home.)
The evaluation, which will take place over the winter, involves verifying the winning company's financial wherewithal to complete the project, confirming that the proposal meets the military's combat requirements and hammering down aspects of intellectual property licences.
Cindy Tessier, head of communications for Lockheed Martin Canada, said today the company is "confident that our proposed solution meets the requirements established, offering the best ship for Canada, with the world's most advanced warship design ...
"Our proposal is a true industry team effort, and we look forward to providing any additional information to the Government of Canada and Irving Shipbuilding. We are ready on Day 1."
The federal government now says it expects to award the final design contract sometime over the winter.
It could be 2023 before construction actually gets underway at the go-to yard for warships — Irving Shipbuilding of Halifax.
But finally pulling the trigger on a designer is a "huge step," Dave Perry, an Ottawa-based procurement specialist at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said in an interview with CBC's Power & Politics. "There's a huge degree of interest in having this done by the spring, and certainly before the next election."
Perry said the importance of this order should not be underestimated, as the new ships will provide the navy with the bulk of its ocean-going fleet — vessels that can be used in war, to protect trade routes or to deliver humanitarian aid.
"They can basically do anything the government wants them to do," he said.
Perry said the $60-billion contract to build the frigates will be a major boon for the Halifax shipyard in particular. "When the economic impact starts spinning, it's really going to be meaningful," he said.
André Fillion, the assistant deputy minister of defence and marine procurement at Public Services and Procurement Canada, said if the federal government is not satisfied that the top bidder can deliver, it will open negotiations with the second-place team of companies.
Alion Science and Technology, along with its subsidiary Alion Canada, had submitted their proposal based on the Dutch De Zeven Provinciën Air Defence and Command (LCF) frigate.
Navantia, a Spanish-based company, headed a team that included Saab and CEA Technologies.
Its proposal was based on the F-105 frigate design, a ship in service with the Spanish navy.
"The former naval officer in me is very excited," said Pat Finn, a retired rear admiral who heads up the Department of National Defence's material branch. "I've been around this for a long time."
Fillion would not say which aspect of the "due diligence assessment" will be the toughest to overcome.
Prior to asking for ship design bids, federal procurement officials spent a lot of time dealing with issues related to intellectual property on the complex systems that will be put into the new warships. Obtaining the necessary clearances is essential in order for the federal government to be able to maintain the vessels in the future.
Failure to do so could cost taxpayers untold tens of millions of dollars — perhaps hundreds of millions — over the five decades the ships are expected to be in service.
Some design changes are expected after the federal government selects an official winner and a contract is in place.
How many changes will be required is a critical question; Finn would only say he doesn't anticipate cutting steel on the new warships for up to four years.
That fuzzy timeline means the program is already months behind schedule. The design competition was launched almost two years ago, when the Liberal government said selecting a foreign, off-the-shelf design would be cheaper and faster than building a warship from scratch.
Finn acknowledged there will be a production gap at the Irving yard in Halifax of about 18 months between construction of the navy's Arctic offshore patrol ships and the frigate replacements.
He added, however, that the federal government is looking at a variety of options to keep the yard humming, including refit work on the existing frigates and possibly building an additional patrol ship, or ships.
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November 19, 2019 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
Military Procurement: What the New Cabinet Can Learn From Australia
By Lee Harding The Liberal government announced its new cabinet on Nov. 20—the very same day the Canadian Global Affairs Institute hosted its annual event on the topic of military procurement. Given that an overhaul in that area is sorely needed, Canada can learn a lot from Australia, Ian Mack wrote in a recent report for the institute. Mack is uniquely qualified to make that assessment, having worked with both governments in their process of awarding contracts for military sea vessels. While he believes both countries had an acceptable result, his report, titled “Another Way to Buy Frigates,” suggests the Canadian approach adds work, balloons costs, and delays success. The re-elected Trudeau government should take note. The Liberals proposed significant changes to Canada's defence procurement system during the election campaign, but it will be a tall order to change this process. The land down under is isolated in a less secure part of the globe, without a nearby superpower like the United States to watch its back. So if Australia is far more diligent about defence than Canada, it might be due to necessity. The last time Canada had a proper and comprehensive white paper on defence was 1994. Australia has had three in the 21st century. Australia's effectiveness goes from the top down, something Canada knows nothing of. As Mack explains, “Canada, uniquely among its allies, has multiple government departments and central agencies significantly involved in the minutiae of its major military procurement projects.” These include Defence; Treasury Board; Finance; Public Services and Procurement; Justice; Innovation, Science and Economic Development—and even more. Meanwhile in Australia, the minister of defence is responsible for all aspects of navy shipbuilding. This includes setting operational and technical requirements, securing funds, developing a plan to benefit domestic industries, and satisfying the legal aspects of procurement. Each country had a project management office of roughly the same size, but Canada's was, frankly, less competent. Australia's office had many knowledgeable contractors working alongside the Department of Defence, whereas Canada's team had many from the public service and armed forces with “little or no applicable experience or knowledge,” according to Mack. “In Canada, significant effort was expended on regular reporting to layers of senior governance,” he says in the report. But it was paperwork and process for its own sake, and impractical in its effect. “Despite the onerous reporting demands, only a few key decisions were rendered and rarely in a timely manner. The opposite was the case in Australia.” In seemingly every aspect of development, Canada made things rigid, complicated, and fragmented, while Australia made them flexible, cohesive, and collaborative. Canada made stand-alone contracts for each sequence of the process. Australia worked with contractors to establish “end-to-end accountability.” Canada's initial request for proposal included hundreds of technical requirements that bidders had to prove. Australia had few mandatory requirements, but worked alongside bidders to explore their respective proposed solutions. In Canada, the intellectual property, liabilities, and insurance requirements were debated at length and only decided hours before the request for proposal was made. Hundreds of criteria got a numerical score, and the sum of all scores won the bid. Canada was “preoccupied” about a public appearance of fairness and avoiding lawsuits. (Nevertheless, the controversy over former Vice-Admiral Mark Norman and complaints from Irving Shipbuilding over the bid for a navy supply vessel shows it failed at this.) Shipbuilders bidding in Australia were confident of a fair system without any of those things. The department did not announce its evaluation criteria, nor was the evaluation report the only factor. Instead, the department stated its objectives and worked collaboratively with three potential bidders in their respective approaches. In Mack's words, this left “the competition to be more about assessing apples, oranges, and bananas” than about tallying up numerical scores. Mack says he could not make the Canadian system work like Australia's because the procurement, request for proposals, and resulting contracts were done outside of the Department of National Defence. At the time, he was “simply unaware of the intricacies of the Australian approach” because he hadn't yet been exposed to it. Regardless, he had already surmised that Canadian bureaucrats “did not want changes to their tried and true ways of doing business” and clung to “adherence to prescriptive and traditional methodologies.” https://www.theepochtimes.com/military-procurement-what-the-new-cabinet-can-learn-from-australia_3150065.html
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April 4, 2023 | Local, Naval
Royal Canadian Navy pitches $60 billion submarine purchase, say defence and industry sources
But that price tag could climb to $100B as military equipment procurement programs are rarely on budget, say industry sources