Austal is ‘the Australian shipbuilder’ and global defence prime contractor focused on continuous process and productivity improvements to reduce design and sustainment costs, while increasing operational safety, effectiveness and availability. The PPB-R project is a significant enhancement to Austal’s capability, representing the first multiple steel vessel contract for the shipbuilder.

“We identified that MADe gives the PBB-R project a highly efficient simulation and analysis capability to optimise the availability profile and supportability costs for our end users based on their expected mission profiles and operating environments,” said Tim Keats, Austal’s ILS manager. “MADe can be run concurrently during the design program, which means that we can optimise the reliability of the vessel, and automatically generate the ILS analysis outputs that are required in the contract using the same analysis solution.”

MADe will be used by Austal to optimise the reliability and maintainability of the PPB-R, and produce the ILS deliverables required under the contract. MADe provides model-based analysis for engineering decision support on the reliability, safety and maintainability attributes of a platform or system. MADe can be used concurrently in the design process, or for an existing in-service asset, enabling reliability, availability, maintainability and ILS analyses to be cost effectively performed at any stage of the product lifecycle.

“Austal has delivered and continues to design, construct and support a broad range of naval vessels for fleets around the world, including the US Navy and Royal Australian Navy,” said Chris Stecki, chief executive of PHM Technology. “Their decision to use MADe on this program demonstrates that our technology has unique and cost-effective analysis capabilities for the ILS analysis required for defence systems and equipment, such as the PPB-R.”