21 octobre 2018 | Local, Naval

Design by British firm BAE picked for Canada’s $60B warship replacement program

DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN

The Canadian Surface Combatant project will see the Halifax-based Irving build 15 warships, which will form the backbone of the future Royal Canadian Navy

The Canadian government has selected a consortium closely linked to Irving Shipbuilding to provide it with a new warship design for the most expensive defence project the country has ever seen.

Canada announced Friday it had chosen the Type 26 warship design by British defence firm BAE for the $60-billion program to replace the Royal Canadian Navy's Halifax-class frigates. Lockheed Martin Canada is leading the BAE consortium and will be the prime contractor. The group's win had been anticipated since 2016, however, after rival defence firms raised concerns that the competition had been rigged in favour of the British design.

The Canadian Surface Combatant project will see the Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding build 15 warships, which will form the backbone of the future Royal Canadian Navy. It will be the largest and most complex procurement in Canadian history. However, it is seen as a major departure from previous procurement processes, as Irving is playing a significant role in selecting the winning design.

The previous federal procurement minister, Judy Foote, had said only mature existing designs or designs of ships already in service would be accepted for the bidding process, on the grounds they could be built faster and would be less risky — unproven designs can face challenges as problems are found once the vessel is in the water and operating. But the Liberal government and Irving accepted the BAE design into the process, though at the time it existed only on the drawing board. Construction began on the first Type 26 frigate in the summer of 2017 for Britain's Royal Navy, but it has not yet been completed.

Both Irving and the federal government have insisted the procurement was being conducted in a way that ensures all bidders are treated equally, overseen by a fairness monitor with no unfair advantage given to any individual bidder. Nonetheless, while three consortiums submitted bids for the surface combatant program, several European shipbuilders decided against participating because of concerns about the fairness of the process. Others raised concerns about BAE's closeness with the Halifax firm.

Last year a French-Italian consortium also declined to formally submit a bid and instead offered Canada a fleet of vessels at a fixed price. Officials with Fincantieri of Italy and Naval Group of France said they don't believe the procurement process as it is currently designed will be successful. The federal government, however, rejected the deal.

The federal government had to remind Irving about the potential for conflict of interest when the firm joined forces with BAE in late 2016 to bid on a multi-billion dollar contract to provide maintenance and support for the navy's new Arctic patrol and supply ships.

The Irving-BAE alliance was not successful in that bid, but it led the government to remind Irving it had an obligation to “ensure that the Canadian Surface Combatant competition is conducted in a manner that is free from real or perceived conflicts of interest,” according to February 2017 documents prepared for defence minister Harjit Sajjan and released to the Conservatives under the Access to Information law.

Andre Fillion, assistant deputy minister for defence and marine procurement at Public Services and Procurement Canada, said Friday's decision is not a contract award. “It's an important step to getting to contract award in the coming months,” he said.

Negotiations will now begin with Lockheed Martin. if negotiations proceed accordingly a contract is expected to be signed sometime between January and March 2019.

But Fillion said if there are issues with those negotiations and an agreement is not reached, the government will then turn to the next highest-ranked bidder. The government has declined to identify that firm, but the other bidders were from the U.S. and Spain.

The Canadian Surface Combatant program has already faced delays and rising costs. In 2008 the then-Conservative government estimated the project would cost roughly $26 billion. But in 2015, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, then commander of the navy, voiced concern that taxpayers may not have been given all the information about the program, publicly predicting the cost for the warships alone would approach $30 billion.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/british-design-selected-for-canadas-60b-warship-replacement-program-amid-concerns-about-winners-links-to-irving/

Sur le même sujet

  • PRÈS DE 3 M$ POUR LES PME AÉROSPATIALES

    14 novembre 2018 | Local, Aérospatial

    PRÈS DE 3 M$ POUR LES PME AÉROSPATIALES

    Stratégie fédérale pour l'innovation et la croissance des régions du Québec : PRÈS DE 3 M$ POUR LES PME AÉROSPATIALES Objectif : Adoption des technologies de rupture en aérospatiale Gaspé, le 9 novembre 2018 — Aéro Montréal, la grappe québécoise de l'aérospatiale, a reçu aujourd'hui un financement de 2,977 millions de dollars afin de soutenir le développement de l'Initiative StartAero360°, lors du lancement de la Stratégie fédérale pour l'innovation et la croissance des régions du Québec. L'honorable Navdeep Bains, ministre de l'Innovation, des Sciences et du Développement économique et responsable de Développement économique Canada pour les régions du Québec (DEC), en a fait l'annonce ce matin, à Gaspé. Cette initiative vise à accompagner les PME technologiques aérospatiales du Québec dans la phase de pré-commercialisation de leurs produits innovants. Les PME de l'initiative seront accompagnées selon un processus structuré, dans le but de répondre de façon collaborative à une occasion d'affaires qui nécessite le développement d'une preuve de concept industriel. Cette Initiative permettra de : Favoriser et accélérer l'adoption des innovations de ruptures sur le marché ; Soutenir l'entrepreneuriat et la création d'emplois au Canada en permettant à des PME de croître à travers la commercialisation de nouveaux produits ; Accroître le rayonnement de l'industrie canadienne à l'échelle internationale gr'ce à l'adoption et à l'exportation de nouvelles technologies de niches avant-gardistes. Pour se développer, les PME aérospatiales doivent de plus en plus composer avec les technologies de ruptures, que sont les technologies numériques, les métadonnées, l'intelligence artificielle, la fabrication additive, etc. Notre rôle est de mettre à leur disposition des outils efficaces, en collaboration avec les deux paliers de gouvernement, pour encourager le virage des PME vers l'adoption des technologies de rupture. « Nos PME technologiques éprouvent encore beaucoup de difficultés à traverser la phase de pré-commercialisation, nécessaire pour assurer leur réussite commerciale. L'Initiative StartAéro360° a été développée pour permettre à nos PME de trouver le soutien nécessaire en vue de la pré-commercialisation de leurs produits les plus innovants », explique Suzanne M. Benoît, présidente-directrice générale d'Aéro Montréal. L'Initiative StartAéro360° vise l'accompagnement de 30 PME sur 3 ans. Ce programme sera doté d'un budget total de 4,385 millions de dollars, dont 1,4 million seront assumés par le secteur privé. À propos d'Aéro Montréal Créée en 2006, Aéro Montréal est un forum stratégique de concertation qui réunit l'ensemble des premiers dirigeants du secteur aérospatial québécois issus de l'industrie, des institutions d'enseignement, des centres de recherche et incluant les associations et les syndicats. Les activités d'Aéro Montréal sont rendues possibles gr'ce à la participation des gouvernements du Canada, du Québec et de la Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal, ainsi que des entreprises membres de la grappe. -30- Pour de plus amples informations : Gwenaël Brisé Responsable des communications et des relations médias Aéro Montréal 438 497-3857 gwenael.brise@aeromontreal.ca https://www.aeromontreal.ca/pres-3-m-pour-pme-aerospatiales.html

  • CAE answers the federal government’s call to procure ventilators

    8 avril 2020 | Local, Aérospatial, C4ISR

    CAE answers the federal government’s call to procure ventilators

    The federal government has launched an accelerated procurement plan with several Canadian companies, including Montreal-based CAE, to procure up to 30,000 ventilators. “Canadian companies are answering the call to protect our health care professionals with made-in-Canada solutions,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a statement on Apr. 7. “This is exactly the kind of innovative, collaborative thinking we need to respond to this rapidly evolving pandemic.” CAE is best known in the aerospace sector for aircraft simulators and training services, helping train over 150,000 pilots per year worldwide. But for more than a decade, the company has also made a name as a healthcare training solutions provider for colleges, universities and hospitals and for medical equipment manufacturers. That includes patient simulators that respond to treatment, including intubation and ventilation. “We have the [medical] and engineering expertise in house – electrical, mechanical, software and human physiology,” said Erick Fortin, director of engineering at CAE Healthcare. A team of 12 engineers took up a challenge issued on Mar. 21 by the Montreal General Hospital Foundation and McGill University Health Centre to develop a simple and low-cost ventilator. Within 10 days, they had a working prototype built with parts from around the lab. “It worked quite well,” said Fortin. “It showed how you can put a team together with the right experts ... and what we can do.” For a company that on Apr. 6 announced the temporary laying off of 2,600 of its 10,500 employees and reduced work weeks for another 900, the opportunity “to do something” has been rewarding. “The whole company is mobilized,” he said. “We are really prepared to produce and we are productizing.” From that initial team of a dozen engineers, the project now has about 100 employees involved. And CAE expects to pull in more as they move to full production. CAE might not be the only company in the Montreal aerospace cluster seeking to solve the ventilator shortage. According to industry think tank Aero Montreal, Pratt & Whitney Canada is also exploring how to use its engineering and manufacturing capabilities to design and validate a ventilator concept that would likely “pull on local manufacturing,” including from Bombardier and AON3D. Fortin said CAE had received “hundreds and hundreds” of emails from companies interested in supplying components, from valves to flow sensors. Though all options are under consideration, including having several contingency plans at the ready, the priority would be to find Canadian suppliers who can deliver high volume. “Some parts are a bit more complex to source, like valves. We'll look at all offers, at all suppliers that can help,” he said. “We are confident that we have everything we need. We certainly have the expertise in house to do the production of thousands of ventilators.” CAE must still fine-tune the prototypes, but it intends to deliver about 10,000 units within three months once it starts production. A low-cost solution might have been part of the engineering team's initial objective, but Fortin admitted the final price might be higher than a typical commercial ventilator. “We try to build it as low as possible,” he said. “As you can imagine, as time is of the essence, cost will be a bit higher that what it could be with a bit more time.” CAE will also be leaning on its training expertise to ensure the final product comes with a complete operator training package. Since mid-March, in fact, the company has been offering online re-skilling courses for ventilators and has released a number of COVID-19 scenarios on its current products such as patient simulators. Fortin noted that more than 2,000 health professionals had participated in coronavirus-related webinars “After 25 years at CAE, I am always surprised at how nimble a big company like this can be, and how we can adjust to different situations,” he said. In its statement on Apr. 7, the government said that about 5,000 Canadian companies have offered expertise and capacity to develop and produce medical personal protective equipment, hand sanitizers and other protective gear. The government is also “working through over 22,000 submissions to Public Services and Procurement Canada from companies interested or able to sell to Canada. All efforts are being made to secure contracts and deliveries as quickly as possible.” “In mobilizing industry and creating partnerships, we are moving swiftly to build up a secure domestic supply of key personal protective equipment to protect Canada's frontline health workers as they fight this pandemic,” said Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. https://www.skiesmag.com/news/cae-federal-governments-call-procure-ventilators/

  • BUILDING SECURITY AND DEFENCE IN THE CANADIAN ECONOMY AND SMALL WARS, BIG DATA EVENT SUMMARY

    4 février 2019 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense

    BUILDING SECURITY AND DEFENCE IN THE CANADIAN ECONOMY AND SMALL WARS, BIG DATA EVENT SUMMARY

    The CDA Institute, in collaboration with the 13thDefence and Security Economists Workshop, hosted two panel discussions on the themes of Building Security and Defence in the Canadian Economy and a discussion of the book Small Wars, Big Data, published by Princeton University Press in 2018. This morning of roundtables brought both scholars and practitioners together for a stimulating session of dialogue on the challenges of generating the economic capacity needed to protect Canadians wherever they might be and the role that empirical data can play in shaping military strategy and defence policies in asymmetric conflicts. The CDA Institute provided student rapporteurs for the event whose summaries of the proceedings follow. https://cdainstitute.ca/building-security-and-defence-in-the-canadian-economy-and-small-wars-big-data/

Toutes les nouvelles