SECORA has been involved in the Department of Defence Strategic Reform Program since its inception, working in Navy, Army, Air Force and Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) projects for Submarines, Fleet Air Arm, Hydrographic, Mine Hunters, Fleet Support Unit Australia and Surveillance & Response Group. Projects have included overall capability reviews, developing reform business cases and project improvement implementation plans, aircrew training, recruitment, maintenance effectiveness, planning and scheduling, logistics & supply optimisation, performance dashboards, safety systems & processes and strategic workforce planning.
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The Planning and Scheduling of WoC activities, including maintenance, is fundamental to achieving the most efficient and effective capability. SECORA has experience in planning and scheduling across multiple industry sectors that allows us to bring the latest in commercial thinking to Defence. We implement change, not just provide a report, and we specialise in visual displays, Pit Stop concepts, KPI reporting, parts optimisation and training.
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SECORA has been engaged to review commercial contracts that exist between Defence and third party providers of services and goods. The catalyst may be a contract renewal, or because there was a significant change in elements of the contract. Such contracts are usually managed by System Program Offices or the DMO. In certain circumstances, we have identified discrepancies in contracts resulting in reductions in contractual payments to third party suppliers of up to $2M per annum.
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SECORA has unique Defence experience and the full skill set to be a recognised supplier of services to industry in support of the Centre for Defence Industry Capability (CDIC) Grants and Innovation Proposal Programs.
SECORA supplements the services provided by the CDIC by providing specialised, detailed and ongoing advisory and facilitation services to industry:
The ability to deliver efficient and cost-effective aircraft maintenance is central to a successful maintenance, repair and overhaul. To achieve this, the organisation must manage the maintenance event plus the supporting inputs of parts, supply chain, human resources, engineering advice, regulatory requirements and planning. By applying our methodologies across planning, we can help achieve an efficient and sustainable maintenance process. Combined with improvements in other activities, such as logistics, our clients have experienced improvements in on-time performance of up to 50%.
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The key driving force in any aerospace operation is the efficient coordination of assets to meet the flying program. In our experience, fleet planning is often driven by the maintenance schedule, rather than maintenance supporting the flying program which, in turn, will have an adverse impact on on-time performance. Therefore, we recommend that the fleet plan should drive the maintenance requirements for fleet assets.
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Robust planning of maintenance events is essential to efficient and effective maintenance functions. Typically, our involvement includes areas such as maintenance event planning, task sequencing, visual management and workplace organisation. Combined with improvements in other activities, such as maintenance and logistics, our clients have experienced as much as 50% improvement in on-time performance.
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Improving the productivity of logistics has a dramatic positive impact on utilisation and cost of ownership of assets. Our Logistics Bridge concept has been developed to ensure that correct supply is delivered to the correct location at the correct time. Our projects typically commence with an end-to-end review of the logistics functions followed by a cleansing of the stock on hand. Then we build an efficient and streamlined bridge between suppliers, stores and the required destination. Discovery of 5,000 redundant line items in one example resulted in $4m in recurrent inventory savings. Reducing wait times in logistics flow has improved tool time and task completion time by up to 20%.
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Configuration Management, Engineering Change Management and Technical Change Management are a unique set of activities that, unless properly assessed and prioritised, will result in significant delays in approval. By assessing the process, approval levels and system of attaching priorities to these matters, dramatic and immediate improvement is possible. In one case, the number of technical change requests halved and the assessment time reduced by 60% following an improvement project.
The SECORA ABI training system was developed from many years of practical application of a variety of continuous improvement tools and techniques. Using contemporary academic research as a basis it draws on the best elements from Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints and their predecessors. This synergy of knowledge ensures that students graduate with the required knowledge on what to apply to a specific issue and more importantly, what not to apply.
SECORA creates and delivers customised training courses designed to help your personnel identify and resolve problems within your organisation, leading to more efficient and effective operations.
Clients benefit from mentoring and coaching which ensure that the learnings from training courses or on-the-job training as part of our engagement are implemented appropriately, effectively and achieve the productivity gains sought.
SECORA is actively engaged with Defence & Aerospace clients in Australia and the Asia Pacific region. These clients include: the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Regular Army, Royal Australian Air Force and Australian Defence Materiel Organisation, Hawker Pacific, Virgin Australia and Pratt & Whitney Canada.
Mark founded SECORA Australasia with John Grout in 2006 and has consulted for clients in the Mining, Defence, Utilities and Professional & Financial Services sectors. Mark is a former Partner of Ferrier Hodgson, Chartered Accountant and Restructuring professional. Mark has advised clients on system wide restructuring and re-organisations, productivity improvement, cost reduction, process efficiency and business case development in Australia, the APAC region and Europe.
Peter is SECORA's Defence lead and consults to clients in the Defence, Logistics and Ports sectors. He is a Navy veteran having held roles in operational, strategic and senior line management including the command of three submarines, the Submarine Task Group, Multi National Task Group Commander and head of the Operations Division for the Joint Operations Command. He is a former Director Business Optimisation at P&O Ports, Director of P&O Trans Australia and General Manager with SKILLED.
