Delivering Success

Acceptance planning and management

To accept or not? The sheer complexity of a platform, the number of stakeholders involved, tight timeframes, challenging cost and performance constraints: these can all undermine your confidence in accepting a new capability.

To help you fully understand and mitigate the risks, we have used our experience of defense acquisition projects to develop key techniques to give you the confidence you have fully understood and mitigated any risks.

As well as our depth of expertise on land assets and knowledge gained over numerous acceptance projects, our independent from external shareholders or manufacturing interests sees us well placed to provide impartial guidance.

Our process sees us work to identify all stakeholders in accepting a system, the key evidence required on which to base decisions, the standard to be applied and the risks that may impact the programme, its cost, quality and capability. We translate this understanding into an acceptance strategy and a robust Integrated Test Evaluation and Acceptance Plan (ITEAP) which flags potential acceptance risk early.

Acceptance is not just a technical activity, it is about communication and interaction too. We provide maximum engagement with all stakeholders throughout a project, helping to manage expectations and reduce acceptance risk.

Trials and validation

Pressure to deliver operational availability applies whether accepting a new platform or supporting changes to requirements or user needs. We bring a detailed understanding of performance characteristics, together with tailored and effective data collection and analysis tools, to manage the time and cost involved in acceptance.

We develop and implement the processes and services you need to measure the performance of your asset against its requirement and specification, whether that asset is a platform, a system, a service or a product:

• Data Collection and Performance Measurement: performance measurement and reporting; R&M trials & demonstration; analysis and reporting.

• Integration and Acceptance Trials: asset performance and analysis; data collection, analysis and reporting; Reliability & Maintainability (R&M) testing including Maintenance Demonstrations (MDEMO), Requirements Growth Testing (RGT), Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) and Higher, Adjacent, Support, Security (HASS) testing; performance measurement; reporting and improvement; asset integration trials and integration management; asset acceptance trials including production of documentation, planning and management; verification and validation.

• Ordnance, Munitions and Explosives (OME) Trials and Tests: development, integration and acceptance trials; R&M testing including MDEMO, RGT, HALT & HASS; OME safety; explosive trials and tests.

Training

From hard skills, knowledge and abilities to changing attitudes and instilling behaviors, we combine skills in learning development with an intimate knowledge of the surface ships environment.

We develop training strategies informed by our training analyses to develop, deliver and audit programmes to support our customers’ teams on complex projects. In addition to the usual range of training formats and media, we have developed our own immersive training platform, ENGAGE, giving customers access to the benefits of synthetic training. These range from multi-user, multi-site flexibility and highly realistic environments which can be amended over time as real-world environments change to a safe but effective way to equip people for potentially dangerous events: 

• Training Analysis sees us establish what the requirement is within the context of your overall training system, e.g. is an amended of new activity required? This includes the provision of Training Needs Analysis (TNA), as assessment of the gap between the knowledge, skills and attitudes your people currently have and what they need to meet your objectives.

• Training Design takes the need and determines what the training activity should look like, who should deliver it and what tools, methods and resources are required to support this. Our learning development abilities, as well as our intimate knowledge of the surface ships environment, see us create formal training statements and complete course training packages.

• Training Delivery does exactly that, delivering the identified programme to grow professional values and attributes, knowledge and understanding and professional skills: whatever the focus of the training is.

• Training Assurance makes sure that, whether in-house of public training, the programme is being delivered correctly and meets your requirements. We inspect and audit the training and give you a clear evaluation.

Other technical courses include:

• Techniques in Reliability Engineering
• Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) for Managers
• An Introduction to Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM)
• Developing a Safety Case
• Management Overview of IEC 61508
• Software Development under IEC 61508
• Project & Programme Management under IEC 61508