Canadian vs. Australian procurement practices

[bdk]

Don't have a dog in the race but thought some folks here might find this interesting.

MacKay looks to Australia for defence advice, inspiration

Thu Sep 3, 4:12 PM

By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - Defence Minister Peter MacKay is looking to Australia as a possible model for untangling Canada's cumbersome system for buying military hardware.

He leaves Friday for an official visit with his counterpart Down Under.

MacKay said he'll examine Australia's recently completed defence white paper and look for ideas within that country's procurement system that could be transplanted to Ottawa.

"There are certainly lessons we can learn, but we're going to come up with a Canadian strategy," he said earlier this week.

Coming to office in 2006 the Conservatives pledged a wholesale re-arming of the Canadian Forces, a frustrating process that has been fraught with postponements.

With the exception of heavy-lift C-17 transport planes for the air force and new Leopard A6M tanks for the army, most major programs have been mired in the defence and Public Works bureaucracy.

It took National Defence three years to sign a sole-service contract to buy CH-47 Chinook medium-heavy-lift helicopters with Boeing. Long-promised fixed-wing search-and-rescue aircraft are still on the drawing board and a replacement supply ship program for the navy had to be scrubbed because bids came in higher than the government expected.

Replacement helicopters for the outdated Sea Kings are years behind schedule.

Defence experts, such as Aaron Plamondon at the University of Calgary, have complained that Ottawa lacks both a long-term procurement strategy and the trained staff to shepherd programs.

"Most often, ad hoc project offices are created and once the project is over, the members of the team scatter to other posts. There is, quite simply, a lack of expertise in an area that is vitally important to the CF," Plamondon wrote in a 47-page report last November for the university's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies.

Australia, which has $100 billion worth of military purchases in the planning stages, overhauled its procurement system in 2003 and made further changes last year.

A 2008 report recommended that the country's Defence Materiel Organization, which oversees purchases, become "more business-like" and impose "commercial discipline."

Specifically, the Defence Procurement and Sustainment Review encouraged Australia to seek out more public-private partnerships to obtain and sustain equipment and bases.

Australia currently spends $25 billion each year on defence, $6 billion more than Canada.

Like the Conservatives in Ottawa, the government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has committed to annual, long-term increases in defence spending.

But Australia is more generous, guaranteeing annual three per cent increases in spending, as well as 2.5 per cent to cover inflation.

The Harper government is offering the military 1.5 per cent growth until 2011 and two per cent for years afterward.

[JDK]

Interesting bdk, hadn't seen that. Thanks.

I wouldn't say that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) procurement system is anything to shout about, but may be better than the Canadian one, which is certainly a disaster.

A specific example you might be able to check is the relative process of the Canadian Forces, RAF and RAAF for obtaining C-17s. That's a good benchmarking.

Obviously the ADF do better than the Canadians as we are spending more than them - despite being a smaller country with a smaller population - our southern 'threat' being NZ (that's a joke, of course. The real issues lie to Australia's North); significantly less overseas commitment in Afghanistan than Canada; I presume a smaller long term commitment to peacekeeping than Canada; and so on. However when you move to value for money...

Having just retired Caribous (no replacement - King Airs at the moment) and in the process of retiring the F-111 (no current replacement - Super Hornets on order as a stopgap before the F-22s turn up) and with a thoroughgoing debacle with SeaSprite helicopters, a complete, comprehensive failure, I'd be hard to see it as effective though. We did build the world's only indigenous non-nuclear modern subs I suppose.

We don't face having to try and police 'our' chunk of Antarctica, unlike the Canadians with everyone looking to the Arctic for commercial reasons.

Hmmm.

[The Inspector]

Remember the re armament debacle Canada went through in the 50's when they ditched what could still today be one bad a$$ed fighter for a bunch of BOMARCS (that they never got) and a few second hand F-101B's all because of dithering and extreme politics and breath holding between the Conservatives and Labour parties. It's time that as a whole Canadian Forces either votes or gets of the pot!
The CF-118 is an OK fighter but the Canadian version is over 25 years old as well as replacements for the Labrador which is over 40 years old (as are the USMC version, the Sea Knight CH-46). They still use the CL-144 TUDOR as a trainer and it's well over 50 years old-

[Oscar Duck]

Australia is not buying F-22's unless they're desk models. The F-35 is the option to replace the legacy Hornets and eventually the F model Super Bugs.

Anything "off the shelf" ala C-17/F-18F/C-130J/CH-47 and the MRH-90 program has more or less gone very well.

It is the "custom" projects that don't work for a number of reasons. Firstly we're often creating a spec that no one has built yet. The R&D requirements for small numbers of platforms blows the budget - costs as much to R & D one as a 100 therefore spreading the unit costs is not available. Secondly we want to buy the cutting edge or next generation that hasn't been built or proven to give the edge. This is the area where we fail big time. The E737 Wedgetail is years late and over budget. The SeaSprites failed because we tried to create a completely new avionics suite in only 11 airframes. Nothing to do with the 'old' aircraft that was lauded in the press. Dozens of other projects here are duds at big $$$$ to us taxpayers and worst of all no results for the ADF and our defence.

Last edited by Oscar Duck on Thu Sep 10, 2009 2:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

[JDK]

Australia is not buying F-22's unless their desk models. The F-35 is the option to replace the legacy Hornets and eventually the F model Super Bugs.

Thanks, Randal, my mistake. I find suppository shaped grey warplanes all look the same to me and I lose the will to live when forced to view them...

Your other points also make sense; I must remember to be proud of my treasure ignorance of modern mil and its purchase in future...

[Andy in West Oz]

I find suppository shaped grey warplanes all look the same to me and I lose the will to live when forced to view them...

ROFLMAO. Bewdiful.

[Randy Haskin]

Thanks, Randal, my mistake. I find suppository shaped grey warplanes all look the same to me and I lose the will to live when forced to view them...

That's probably the same way that the biplane fighter pilots of the Great War felt about those new, shiny metal "monoplanes" of WWII.

[JDK]

Indeed Randy. Documented, too. But....





...I'm not a pilot. My watch is small.

[Oscar Duck]

JDK, for your benefit here is the latest 'gray' thingie for RAAF...

#1 of 24 [includes 12 EF-18G0]http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/uu23/randalmcfarlane/?action=view&current=RAAFFA-18FSuperHornetFirstFlight.jpg