Alliance Parties: BAE Systems Submarines, Rolls Royce Submarines, Defence Supply and Support Team (DSST) - part of the MoD’s Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA)
Dates: 2017 - 2023
Services: Consultancy and advisory
The Dreadnought programme is a UK Defence contract for the development, build and introduction into service of the next generation nuclear missile-carrying submarines, that will maintain the UK’s Continuous at Sea Deterrent (CASD) capability
Key benefits
- Increased confidence in expected cost and schedule outcome, providing a sound basis for a multi-billion-pound investment decision
- 12 months cumulative savings delivered by opportunity management against the programme’s baseline schedule
- Substantial price reductions in supplier estimates, following a forensic approach to risk provision in infrastructure contract negotiation
The 20+ year, multi-billion-pound programme is being managed by the Dreadnought Submarine Alliance, which is a collaboration between the MOD, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce. It involves several thousand people working across many sites in the UK and abroad and in complex supply chains.
Costain has provided resources into the Dreadnought Alliance (DNA) since 2017. Costain experts in schedule development and management, risk and opportunity management, change management, project controls and earned value (EV) management have been a part of the DNA organisation.
Risk management
Costain’s team of experts have provided risk specialist support to the Alliance at critical stages of the programme:
Investment case
The risk team supported Defence Equipment & Support Submarine Operating Centre on the investment case to proceed with full manufacture, which included:
- Schedule Risk Analysis of the demonstration, manufacture, and trials phases of the project, providing a forecast for entry into service
- Evidence that underpinning risk information was sufficiently mature with risks captured in a structured register including appropriate definitions and basis of estimates
- Evidence that the risk process was ‘fit for purpose’ for a project of this scale and being operated effectively to manage and control threats and opportunities on the project.
Our analysis identified the principal schedule threats, aided the development of more targeted mitigation strategies, and enabled better-informed decision making. This work also improved schedule integrity and led to the development of a more credible baseline schedule for the programme.
Commercial risk arrangements to incentivise performance
Our team supported the Submarine Delivery Agency’s commercial team in securing value for money during its negotiations with key suppliers on a series of contracts to build new or upgrade existing shipbuilding facilities at the Barrow-in-Furness site.
Our risk experts defined clear risk management requirements for each contract, ensuring transparency on overall risk exposure, emerging areas of risk and supplier risk response performance. HM Treasury Optimism Bias assessments were used in combination with outturn comparison of similar projects to benchmark risk provision and inform negotiations, and we provided forensic assurance of the proposed contract risk basis (risk register, cost model, Quantitative Cost Risk Assessment/ Quantitative Schedule Risk Analysis), highlighting and rectifying inconsistencies and challenging areas of under/over provision. During detailed discussions between the parties, we provided advice on the best negotiating approach for incentives, determining risk provision and risk management requirements, recommending a way forward to reach a value for money outcome.
Identifying opportunities to increase delivery confidence
During the delivery phase, our advisory team led an exercise on behalf of the client to identify and embed schedule reduction measures and establish a consistent opportunity management process. This ensured that potential opportunities were identified, properly assessed and validated, and – where these met specified value criteria – implemented into the programme baseline.
We conducted a detailed review of the schedule, combining this with the output of our risk modelling work to identify the paths through the schedule where reductions in baseline durations would deliver most benefit. We then worked with subject matter experts to develop and implement viable opportunities, delivering significant reductions in planned durations via a combination of changes to build methodology, make/buy approach, work sequence and resourcing. Overall, this work delivered more than 12 months cumulative savings against the programme’s baseline schedule.
Contact
Bob Anstey
Sector director