Investigating project management maturity in the ship repair industry of South Africa, a case study

Purpose Ship repair companies that employ a greater degree of the project management process functions enjoys greater business value and business success. Such certainty within a business' structure supports its longer-term sustainability and improves its growth potential. This research seeks to address the problem relating to the inability of ship repair companies to continually achieve targeted project estimates because of a lower levels of project management maturity. Research Design The research is exploratory in nature as the response in term of the selected maturity model used, seeks to understand the level of application of the ten PMI knowledge areas and how deeply engrained the function is adopted in the performance and within the organisation within the ship repair industry. The principle of communities of practise was adopted for this study which implies that the response and the data obtained will be based on the information shared by the respondents on their insights, experience, knowledge, and common interests within the industry. Findings - This study found an active, informal, and partially structured project management function present within the Western Cape's ship repair industry. The study further found the actual project maturity level at an average of 3.24, in line expectations for the industry and following the same direction, though at a lower level as similar research done on South Africa's IT, mining, engineering, and construction industries. Research Limitations - The study is limited to the Western Cape province's ship repair industry and based on the views of the industry's community of practise as indicator of its project management maturity

Air Warfare Destroyer Program

The objective of the audit was to report on the progress of the current phase of the AWD Program, which is known as SEA 4000 Phase 3–Build. This phase commenced in June 2007, and covers the finalisation of the detailed design, the signing of the Alliance and Platform System Design contracts, and the construction and delivery of the ships by the Industry Participants to the DMO. Phase 2 of the AWD Program was the design phase, and ended in June 2007. Phase 2 is addressed in this report in terms of its role in reducing risks in Phase 3. The audit focused primarily on Defence’s administration of the AWD Program. It examined Defence’s progress thus far in establishing and working through the management structures and processes used to deliver the DDGs within approved cost, schedule and performance parameters. The audit considered the Hobart-class DDGs’ design and construction in terms of: the achievement of key engineering and construction milestones, based on systems engineering criteria; the management of cost, schedule and their attendant risks; and the effectiveness of the Alliance contract. The high-level criteria used in the audit to assess Defence’s administration were as follows: contract management processes should be in accordance with internal Defence procedures and contractual provisions; appropriate project governance, financial controls, and reporting mechanisms should be in place; delivery and acceptance arrangements should assure conformance with technical regulatory requirements; and the program should adhere to agreed systems engineering procedures. Overall conclusion At a budgeted cost of some 8.5 billion, the SEA 4000–Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD) Program is one of the largest acquisitions undertaken by the Department of Defence (Defence) for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). The Program will deliver three Hobart-class Guided Missile Destroyers (DDGs) that will replace the RAN’s four remaining Adelaide-class Guided Missile Frigates (FFGs). The DDGs are based on a modified version of an existing design, newly exported by a Spanish designer to a new Australian shipbuilder for construction in a distributed-build environment. The Alliance contract for the construction of the DDGs involves the Commonwealth as the owner-participant; and two non-owner Industry Participants, namely ASC AWD Shipbuilder Pty Ltd, the subsidiary of a (Commonwealth) Government Business Enterprise (GBE) and Raytheon, a public company. The AWD Program’s governance and construction arrangements are inherently complex, but seek to strike a reasonable balance between assigning core responsibilities to individual parties and promoting a cooperative relationship between the Alliance participants. The Alliance contract imposes a ‘fundamental obligation’ on the Industry Participants to deliver the DDGs and other Supplies and to achieve delivery schedule commitments. There is, accordingly, high dependency on the performance of the Industry Participants to manage the project risks in association with the Commonwealth. Any residual risks accrue to the Commonwealth in funding the project, and to the Commonwealth’s representative in the Alliance, the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO), in managing the delivery of this significant capability within cost and to schedule, as the AWD Program manager and project customer on behalf of the RAN. Successive Australian governments have accepted that building the DDGs in Australia would involve a premium over and above the cost of building them overseas. The decision to build locally is based on a desire to retain shipbuilding jobs and facilities, project management and design skills, and experience with sophisticated naval combat systems, so as to enable through-life support of the DDGs in Australia and a continuing naval shipbuilding industry. As part of the June 2007 Second Pass submission to government, the Treasury noted that the premium associated with building the DDGs in Australia was around 1 billion, representing an effective rate of assistance of over 30 per cent for naval shipbuilding. Since the commencement of the build phase, the AWD Program has developed and maintained a skilled workforce and production facilities, and made significant progress in the construction of the DDGs. As at January 2014, consolidation of blocks in the form of a hull was nearing completion on Ship 1, and zone-level fit-out was well underway. The majority of Ship 2 blocks were structurally complete and production outfitting was underway. In the near future, the build phase will expand into the installation, set-to-work and systems integration of complex state-of-the-art warship platform and combat systems. Nevertheless, under current plans, there is a gap between the DDGs’ production and the next design-and-construction program for major surface ships, which would result in a reduction in the naval shipbuilding workforce. A range of Defence stakeholders have observed a risk, which is under consideration by the Australian Government, that the experience and knowledge gained by the shipbuilding sector during the build phase may not be available to meet the RAN’s future whole-of-life support and capability requirements. Defence developed the AWD Program ship design options and alliance arrangements through a substantial investment in a competitive design phase and the close involvement of industry during that phase. This resulted in the selection of a modified Existing Design by the then Government in 2007 instead of an Evolved Design. The Evolved Design was considered to be too immature and presented high risk. In developing the Alliance contractual arrangement, Defence combined elements of a typical alliance contract with the more ‘standard’ risk allocation provisions of a fixed-price contract, with a view to protecting the Commonwealth’s interests. The Alliance contract obliges the Industry Participants to deliver the DDGs and meet schedule commitments. Based on the extensive work undertaken on the design by industry in the design phase, the Alliance contract also includes warranties by the Industry Participants that they had assessed the risks they were assuming; and that they had the resources required to perform their obligations. Despite the contractual arrangements put in place to manage the project, the AWD Program has experienced a range of delivery issues, including significant immaturity in detailed design documentation, major block construction problems and substantially lower than anticipated construction productivity. The design and construction issues have led to extensive, time-consuming and costly rework. The Alliance reported in November 2013 that the contract for the construction of the DDGs would be completed at an estimated cost of some 302 million or 6.8 per cent in excess of the Target Cost Estimate. The cost overrun is attributable to the shipbuilding elements of the project. As previously reported in the 2012–13 Major Projects Report, the AWD Program exceeded its original budget allocation for 2012–13 by 106.4 million as a result of increased Direct Project Costs from the Industry Participants for labour, materials and subcontract costs. In the same report, the CEO DMO advised that: There are emerging concerns from the AWD Alliance around cost overruns and associated delays in shipbuilding aspects of the AWD Program. An independent review is to be commissioned to identify factors contributing to cost growth and delays, and to recommend remediations and mitigation. In the light of these concerns about cost overruns, the current estimated cost of $302 million in excess of the Target Cost Estimate should be treated with caution; the cost increase is likely to be significantly greater. The delivery schedule for the three DDGs was revised in September 2012 and is now some 15 to 21 months later than the original delivery schedule (for Ships 1 to 3). Despite the effect of design and construction issues on the cost and schedule for the DDGs, their materiel capability requirements remain as specified at Second Pass approval. However, Operational Test and Evaluation to validate the specified capability achievement is scheduled to commence in August 2015 for Ship 1, 12 months later than originally scheduled. While Defence did seek to adopt prudent risk mitigation strategies in the design and build phases of the program, drawing heavily on industry input and experience to inform its advice to government, the risks of developing a modified design, exporting the design for construction in distributed Australian shipyards, and re-establishing Australia’s shipbuilding capability were underestimated. This is the first time the Spanish designer Navantia has exported a surface ship design for construction by international shipyards, the first time ASC has built a surface ship, and the other Australian shipyards lacked recent experience in complex warship building. While Defence has subsequently sought to address design, construction and productivity issues through DMO involvement in Alliance governance and program management, and the application by the Industry Participants of new strategies during the build phase, substantial performance issues were ongoing in late 2013. As mentioned above, the continuing detailed design, construction and productivity issues present a significant risk of further overruns in the cost of the project, as well as in the delivery schedule, and will require an ongoing management focus. Further, the program is approaching the complex stage of systems integration when, historically, cost and schedule risks tend to rise

Outsourcing and acquisition models comparison related to IT supplier selection decision analysis

This paper presents a comparison of acquisition models related to decision analysis of IT supplier selection. The main standards are: Capability Maturity Model Integration for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ), ISO / IEC 12207 Information Technology / Software Life Cycle Processes, IEEE 1062 Recommended Practice for Software Acquisition, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) guide. The objective of this paper is to compare the previous models to find the advantages and disadvantages of them for the future development of a decision model for IT supplier selection

Optimization on emergency materials dispatching considering the characteristics of integrated emergency response for large-scale marine oil spills

Many governments have been strengthening the construction of hardware facilities and equipment to prevent and control marine oil spills. However, in order to deal with large-scale marine oil spills more efficiently, emergency materials dispatching algorithm still needs further optimization. The present study presents a methodology for emergency materials dispatching optimization based on four steps, combined with the construction of Chinese oil spill response capacity. First, the present emergency response procedure for large-scale marine oil spills should be analyzed. Second, in accordance with different grade accidents, the demands of all kinds of emergency materials are replaced by an equivalent volume that can unify the units. Third, constraint conditions of the emergency materials dispatching optimization model should be presented, and the objective function of the model should be postulated with the purpose of minimizing the largest sailing time of all oil spill emergency disposal vessels, and the difference in sailing time among vessels that belong to the same emergency materials collection and distribution point. Finally, the present study applies a toolbox and optimization solver to optimize the emergency materials dispatching problem. A calculation example is presented, highlighting the sensibility of the results at different grades of oil spills. The present research would be helpful for emergency managers in tackling an efficient materials dispatching scheme, while considering the integrated emergency response procedure.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Organisational sustainability readiness: a model and assessment tool for manufacturing companies

Manufacturing plays a major role in the economic and social development of society, yet this often comes at a high environmental cost. Despite great advances in our understanding of sustainability issues and solutions developed to tackle this challenge, current production and consumption models are still largely unsustainable. Strong industrial actions are required to move towards safer and cleaner practices respectful of the planetary boundaries. This paper puts forward a novel approach for top and middle management in manufacturing companies to build capabilities for sustainable manufacturing by assessing their organisational sustainability readiness. The proposed model and tool for organisational sustainability readiness were developed based on themes emerging from empirical data collected via interviews and focus groups in six companies. The resulting themes were consolidated and validated with relevant literature to create four levels of readiness, displaying a crescendo of operations management practices on the shop floor that positively affect sustainability performance. Finally, an industrial application was used to further validate the tool and demonstrate how it can help companies develop a roadmap for a more sustainable manufacturing industry

Synchromodality as a prospective digitalization scheme for freight logistics : a pre-study report

The proliferation of digital technologies presents a potential avenue to transform the freight logistics industry by streamlining the information flow, increasing the flexibility of transportation routes, and creating a more effective and efficient freight logistics system. In an endeavor to gain a comprehensive understanding of the industry’s needs/challenges and to formulate a proficient policy framework to address them, a pre-study was undertaken at the World Maritime University (WMU). This scholarly exploration centered on the concept of synchromodality, which involves the harmonization of different freight logistics modalities. The study delineates a working definition of synchromodality within the context of freight logistics. Furthermore, it proffers a Synchromodality Maturity Model designed to evaluate the digitalization progress of stakeholders in the industry. This assessment is supported by case investigations into Roll-on/Roll-off logistics in Sweden. Working Definition: Synchromodality is an operational concept applicable to freight logistics for the purpose of adding value to customers by organizing and utilizing resources in an effective and efficient way, that can be achieved through facilitating integration amongst stakeholders along the logistics chain and enhancing their operational visibility and flexibility. The outcomes of this study carry noteworthy implications for both policy formulation and industrial implementation. The study advocates that policymakers allocate considerable resources to invest in digital infrastructure and establish standardized data protocols to foster collaborative partnerships. Moreover, logistics service providers are encouraged to pivot their strategies on generating customer value, nurturing collaborative ecosystems, and enhancing human capital in the context of data-centric methodologies. It is postulated that synchromodality could increase operational efficiency through optimal utilization of transportation resources, improve environmental sustainability, and enhance customer satisfaction. Exploring future studies in this area is required to achieve synchromodality in practice, such as: Towards enhancing digital infrastructure for greater freight logistics services Towards striving for seamless integration of all stakeholders in freight logistics chains Towards facilitating technology adoption in the freight logistics network This pre-study project was funded by Trafikverket and was supported by various logistics companies, shippers, and academic organizations.https://commons.wmu.se/lib_reports/1092/thumbnail.jp

Characteristics of redistributed manufacturing systems: a comparative study of emerging industry supply networks

This paper explores the characteristics of redistributed manufacturing systems within the context of emerging industry supply networks (EI SNs), with a particular focus on their structure, operations and reconfiguration dynamics. A number of factors have resulted in the redistribution of manufacturing. Within Emerging Industries, advances in process and information technologies, have changed the physical and information characteristics of components and products, and the viable production economies of scale. Further, the emergence of new specialised companies fulfilling key research, production or service roles have changed industry structure and operations, and the conventional model of value creation. Six industrial systems are examined using an Industrial System mapping methodology providing a basis for cross-case analysis, selected on the basis of representing alternative and novel evolution paths that may provide insights into the characteristics of EI SNs within a redistributed manufacturing context. Cross-case analysis suggests several generic aspects to EI SNs, including the blurring of traditional industry boundaries and the critical requirement to manage uncertainty. Alternative forms of EI SNs are observed supporting particular EI evolution paths. Further, more adaptive SNs support increased product variety, with lower inventory models enabled by enhanced production and distribution flexibility, often located closer to demand.The authors would like to acknowledge UK Research Council EPSRC, the industrial collaborators who provided access to their organisations, and their supply network, industrial and institutional partners.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2016.121476

Tradespace and Affordability – Phase 2

MOTIVATION AND CONTEXT: One of the key elements of the SERC’s research strategy is transforming the practice of systems engineering – “SE Transformation.” The Grand Challenge goal for SE Transformation is to transform the DoD community’s current systems engineering and management methods, processes, and tools (MPTs) and practices away from sequential, single stovepipe system, hardware-first, outside-in, document-driven, point-solution, acquisition-oriented approaches; and toward concurrent, portfolio and enterprise-oriented, hardware-software-human engineered, balanced outside-in and inside-out, model-driven, set-based, full life cycle approaches.This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part, by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) under Contract H98230-08- D-0171 (Task Order 0031, RT 046).This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part, by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) under Contract H98230-08- D-0171 (Task Order 0031, RT 046)