Hi Volk
All cool. To be honest part of the problem is defence are both the regulator and client and that can lead to some pretty odd compromises. It gets critical when maintenance gets deferred for reasons of politics or expediency.
I agree the problem is a lack of robust technical capability in the Naval administration where they come to rely on class and don't maintain a robust in house capability to assess what they do. As a result they become reliant on Class who may not always understand the operational imperatives. Sadly this also goes for some flag states who find themselves flummoxed when something goes pear shaped and they are approached for a decision. Not helped when some class societies are also suffering dilution in technical skill.
The other issue is WHS legislations and how this impacts on ships being used by government. The red tape around that (which is not necessarily run by technical individuals) is eye watering and can only be dealt what by those who understand the applicable standards.
Having a ship building industry (this includes the naval arcs) that understand regulatory requirements (trust many don't) helps to build a skill bases for the industry as a whole and may open up opportunities to build specialised vessels here (particularly if they are for government).
The sad thing is the gutting of naval engineering as well as shipbuilding results in people without a back ground in either being brought in to fill roles that they lack, if not the qualifications for, then the experience. This leads to people who don't really know making decisions, often not necessarily mistakes but rather their lack of experience leads to a poor understanding of the real risks and hence over confidence, or sometimes even worse a low risk appetite and inappropriate caution.
Too many non technical managers, administrators, politicians and their advisors, do not trust the competent and capable technical people doing the work. Sometimes the naysayers have technical backgrounds but from aviation, or manufacturing / mass production of simple products and think they understand how things work and are actively, even arrogantly dismissive of the opinions and advice of the shipbuilders.
Examples that come to mind include a non defence senior supply chain manager from a non defence, non complex, manufacturing industry that basically used turnkey plant, materials and consumables from a small number of well established suppliers, FIGJAM. He would not listen, could not comprehend what he was being told anyway and was particularly dismissive of people from submarines because they were "overly fussy and spent too much time worrying about unimportant and irrelevant things that did not add value" completely ignoring the fact that all of those things were either actually contracted, or were known from experience toa be critical.
Then there was a risk manager who could not be convinced that non conforming product had nothing to do with a material change and was rather a direct result of the contracted supplier subcontracting the work to an overseas supplier whose plant and processes were incapable of producing product to the contracted specification. He was hammering engineering for making a change required and approved by the customer and missing the point that the real issue was supply chain had relied upon document reviews, certificates and signed affirmations, predominantly through Navantias existing supply chain rather than a robust SQA, test, inspection and audit program.
A senior lead in the Alliance (as opposed to the shipbuilding) engineering team, came from an aviation background ( he had worked for NHI in Europe on the NH90 during design and preproduction) was of the opinion that anyone who had done a trade had obviously not gone to university because they were not smart enough to have done so, hence they obviously were barely literate, incapable of reading instructions or filling out paperwork. So he would automatically trust an engineer or manager at a supplier/subcontractor etc. but would disbelieve the word of a tradesman, technician, technical officer, supervisor, manager (who had come up through trade) because they were obviously incompetent.
If Australia adequately supported our strategically vital shipbuilding industry it would be training its own specialists in support and administration functions and thus would not be let down by the people and organisations they have to rely on instead. Continuity would provide the experienced people required to prevent the mistakes of the past, people who know which risks are worthwhile and which out way the benefits. The would be able to confidently provide advice that the decision makers would happily accept and perhaps most importantly, this expertise and confidence would flow into sustainment, procurement and other industries, improving performance and delivering better value for money.
Can't link the article in the Weekend Oz.