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This paper was presented at the IMarEST/INEC 2010 conference.

FUTURE SURFACE COMBATANT C1 CONCEPT PHASE - BOUNDING THE REQUIREMENT

BY

R F LAMERTON MSc, CEng, MRINA. THALES NAVAL, UK

A CUDAMORE, MSc, CEng, FRINA, RCNC

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE, UK

I M LEACH, BSc, CEng, MIMechE, RCNC BAE SYSTEMS SURFACE SHIPS, UK

ABSTRACT

The Future Surface Combatant (FSC) is intended to replace the capability of the Type 22 and the Type 23 frigates. The concept phase development of this project was progressed as the first project of the Naval Design Partnership (NDP), a new initiative intended to sustain warship design skills in the UK and to provide the Ministry of Defence with a design environment which allows the Ministry of Defence to make the major decisions in a design to cost framework. The design to cost framework for the FSC C1 used a decision conference approach to demonstrate an affordable design solution. The initial development of the engineering solution space drew on the experience of the members of the NDP as well as the operational analysis available and preliminary user requirement documentation. Over 200 equipment and configuration options were balanced as whole ship solutions to ensure that the full impact of each option was understood. The benefit of each option was considered under the headings of performance, through life coherence, programme coherence and industrial coherence and agreed with stakeholders while the cost of each option was assessed independently. The decision conference used a multi criteria decision analysis approach to optimise the performance within the budget. The representative baseline ship configuration derived from this approach has successfully passed initial gate and the programme enters the assessment phase in early 2010.

INTRODUCTION

The Type 22 Batch 3 and the Type 23 frigates first entered service in 1988 and 1991 respectively. These ships are due to be replaced from the early 2020s having had ship lives in excess of 30 years. The Type 23 was originally designed for a service life of 18 years and with changes to legislation, safety and environmental requirements it is no longer cost effective to extend the ships’ life beyond 30 years. In 2006 the Ministry of Defence (MOD) ran a pathfinder programme called the Sustained Surface Combatant Capability (S2C2) to investigate the shape of the future Royal Navy Surface Combatant fleet. The output of the study was a fleet structure comprising three classes of ship. The C1 vessel was identified as a task force escort with a primary role of Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW), the C2 was a

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general purpose frigate for global stabilisation / peace keeping roles and C3 was a smaller hull which could be outfitted for a range of roles including mine counter measures, hydrographic survey and patrol duties. This paper describes the approach adopted for the C1 concept phase.

In 2005 the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) was published. Within the strategy the ability to define requirements, perform design from concept through to manufacture, build and support complex warships were identified as sovereign requirements. The DIS has had two broad outcomes over the intervening years. For system design through to manufacturing a Terms Of Business Agreement (TOBA) was reached with a consolidated shipbuilding entity, BVT, which in October 2009 became BAE Systems Surface Ships. To complement the detailed design and build approach the Naval Design Partnership (NDP) was formed to provide an organisation to deliver pre-concept and concept studies. These two constructs will provided the full capability to deliver complex naval programmes from requirements definition through design and build and into service with the MOD retaining responsibility for major decisions and risk in the project.

Authors Biography

Robert Lamerton was the naval architect lead in the NDP and works for Thales Naval. Prior to working for Thales he worked for BMT Defence Services, and the Ministry of Defence. He has worked in the concept and assessment phases of the CNGF, the Norwegian Frigate, Astute and the Queen Elizabeth Class.

Adrian Cudmore was the FSC Chief Engineer and as the NDP Team Leader was responsible for implementing the NDP Pilot Programme. He has worked on early stage design of submarines, acceptance and support of Vanguard Class Submarines, as technical design manager for the Wave Class RFA and as the Platform Design Authority for all Frigates.

Ian Leach was the NDP System Engineer for the FSC C1 pilot programme; he works for BAE Systems Surface Ships, (formerly BVT). He is a chartered engineer and member of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors and has over 30 years experience in the naval domain, he is currently working as a business development executive.

FSC C1 CONCEPT APROACH

The FSC C1 team was formed within the NDP construct and ran as a pilot programme. The NDP provides a framework for the MOD to access suitably qualified and experienced people and companies who can support naval vessel projects through the concept design phase. The NDP is tasked with translating requirements into concept designs for affordable and cost effective naval vessels. With an enduring business model it will help sustain, within the UK, the capability to design complex naval vessels at the platform and combat system architecture levels. It will encourage and generate innovation in design with a creative and incentivised multi-company team and will influence the direction of research and articulate the route to market to maximise technology exploitation.

The NDP team for the FSC C1 comprised of core team and associate members. Core team members were required to bring a holistic whole ship design knowledge

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and expertise while associate members typically bring specialist technical and equipment knowledge. The core team members were selected by competition and included BAE Systems Surface Fleet Solutions with VT Shipbuilding[1], BAE Systems Insyte, Babcock Marine, BMT Defence Services, QinetiQ and Thales. Associate members included Converteam, MBDA and Rolls Royce. It can be seen that the shipbuilding organisations were an integral part of the NDP team.

THE FSC C1 REQUIREMENT

The User Requirement Document (URD) is a structured statement of the requirement for the FSC C1. From a single statement of user need high level characteristics are developed which in turn flow down into requirements. At the requirement level a range of possible performance levels are identified. To enable an affordable design to be investigated these performance levels need to be translated into system or equipment solutions which can then be synthesised into a whole ship solution.

Fig 1 shows the single statement of mission need and the high level characteristics which derive from it. The final block in the figure, enabling features, is included to recognise that there are significant ship performance features which can drive affordability or are a transverse feature across the high level characteristics.

FIG.1 - SINGLE STATEMENT OF MISSION NEED AND HIGH LEVEL CHARACTERISTICS

Fig 2 shows the interpretation and understanding applied to the high level characteristics to identify the capabilities required of the FSC.

1 BVT Surface Fleet was formed in 2008 by the merging of the naval shipbuilding and associated support interests of BAE Systems and VT Group. In 2009 VT Group sold its 45% stake in BVT to BAE Systems and the resulting organisation is now called BAE Systems Surface Ships.

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FIG.2 - INTERPRETATION OF HIGH LEVEL CHARACTERISTICS

ESTABLISHING THE DESIGN ENVELOPE

Objective

The overall objective was to establish a balance of affordability and capability where capability must be justified (supported by operational analysis), realistic (in terms of time and cost), achievable (technical maturity and clear development programmes) and measurable. One of the key activities of the FSC C1 concept phase was to develop an understanding of the sensitivity of alternative solutions (the ‘design envelope’) and their cost (the ‘cost envelope’) in meeting the user requirement (the ‘capability envelope’). This is approach is illustrated in Fig 3 and was necessary as it is not possible to directly cost capability, this can only be achieved via the solution space.

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FIG.3 - CAPABILITY, DESIGN AND COST ENVELOPE INTERACTION

The Design Envelope

Fig 4 and Fig 5 show how capability functions were developed from the high level characteristics to allow the sensitivity of the design solution to system and platform cost drivers to be identified. The performance of each capability function was broadly expressed in a range from Threshold (lowest acceptable), through Baseline Expected Value (that expected to provide an appropriate balance of cost and performance) to Objective (highest anticipated performance) in the URD. From the three levels of performance it was then possible to identify alternative candidate equipment solutions for consideration in the design envelope. It was at this stage that alternative or new technologies could also be considered to provide the required performance. A wide range of operational analysis was used to support the selection of capability functions and candidate equipments for the trade study.

Although the equipment line provided the main focus in the design envelope the impact on the other Defence Lines of Development[2] (DLOD) was considered with training, personnel, infrastructure and logistics also having important interactions with the design options.

2 The DLODs are training, equipment, personnel, information, concepts and doctrine, organisation, infrastructure, logistics and interoperability.

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FIG.4 - DESIGN ENVELOPE FOR HIGH LEVEL CHARACTERISTICS 1 TO 3; THE CORE CAPABILITIES

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FIG.5 - DESIGN ENVELOPE FOR HIGH LEVEL CHARACTERISTICS 4 TO 8, DELIVERY OF CORE CAPABILITIES

The design process also includes a capability identified as whole ship sump features. The sump features includes all the underlying ship and combat system aspects which were not directly considered within the trade space for the initial gate milestone. For example this includes mandatory features for the ship, e.g. to achieve IMO or safety case compliance as well as whole ship items such as structure and ship supporting systems, e.g. air conditioning, sea water systems, outfitting, integrated bridge and navigation system, and the platform management system. The process of scoping the design envelope identified 34 different trade

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areas with some capability functions supporting more than one capability. Each capability function had between two and eight alternative equipment solutions defined. For example naval fires guns had three different medium calibre gun options and each gun choice had a range of ammunition stowage capacity linked to it. In addition some of the combat system options had a zero option associated to the capability function. For the propel capability function a lower level decision conference was held to select the promising configurations from over 30 alternatives. This resulted in both hybrid and full electric propulsion plants with a range of prime movers being identified for the whole ship studies. In addition a full mechanical option was also included as a low cost option although this configuration did not meet all the performance requirements.

The Cost Envelope

The cost envelope identified the equipment and capability key cost drivers. These were classified as equipments and capabilities that could change the platform unit production cost by greater than £1million when moving up or down the trade space for the concept phase. This enabled the design team to focus most effort on a smaller number of key equipments and capabilities and was therefore instrumental in transforming the design envelope to one of a manageable size. Trades associated with a cost delta less than £1 million will be addressed during the assessment phase.

The NDP cost model contained four modules addressing project, platform, system and risk costs and was provided by a specialist cost modelling company. The project module contained the management and design costs for the project, the platform module the cost of the shipyard supplied elements such as the hull and outfitting, the systems module captured the major items of equipments and the risk module gathered the potential cost of the risks identified in the risk register. Each module used a three point estimate of each of the cost elements. Generally the cost estimates in the platform module were weight based while in the systems module they were equipment based. Costs were broken out into non recurring elements, unit production costs and, to a lesser degree of accuracy at this stage in the CADMID cycle, through life costs.

ANALYSIS STRATEGY

To understand the whole ship impact of each of the options it was decided at an early stage that a complete concept model of each ship would be developed. A numerical concept tool was available through VT Shipbuilding and this was used to create each of the concept ships. This was populated with weight and space algorithms derived from as built ship data as well as weight and space requirements for combat system equipments and propulsion and auxiliary spaces. During the first nine months of the concept phase over 200 ship (including novel hull forms using a different toolset), system and equipment options were assessed on a whole ship basis. The model evolved during the course of the work and was validated by generating concepts to match existing ships. Although the tool is described as a numerical tool, as opposed to a graphical toolset, it did include the location of major space drivers in the design such as the machinery spaces, the mission bay, the hangar and the primary weapon systems.

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The decision making approach adopted required all the ships to be compared to a reference design. The reference design was selected to have the same capability (as defined in the master data assumptions list) as the designs developed by shipyards in the earlier S2C2 studies. This enabled a further check to be made on the validity of the concept tool as well as allowing funding lines and cost estimates to be directly compared. Within the NDP the reference design was termed the starting point design.

The starting point design developed using the numerical concept tool was also validated by the NDP by developing the design further to confirm that the concept solution developed was viable. A general arrangement was developed and stability, powering and sea keeping analysis carried out. This confirmed that there were no major deficiencies in the concept model.

DECISION CONFERENCE PREPARATION

The approach selected to explore the balance of FSC affordability and capability was based on a socio-technical methodology, utilising the Equity3 multi-criteria decision analysis process in a decision conference environment. The FSC C1 decision conference was held at Programme Board level, was chaired by the Senior Responsible Officer and included 1 star representatives (Commodore or equivalent) from each of the DLODs.

Prior to the decision conference each capability and equipment option was assessed in domain based workshops on a whole ship basis against assessment criteria which were developed with the FSC Programme Board. The workshops included stakeholders from the capability sponsor, Navy Command, subject matter experts from the Defence Equipment and Support organisation, technical and operational analysis experts from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories and experts from industry. Two cost and five benefit criteria were used.

Cost Criteria

The two cost criteria were:

• A unit production cost which was the incremental total cost of each option, including the materials / equipment, cost of installation, setting to work and acceptance events. (i.e. those elements recurring for each ship).

• A through life cost which was the cost to the FSC programme across the DLODs. The through life cost data was provided at the domain based workshops and was based upon information from suppliers and previous programmes. However it was recognised that the level of maturity and breadth of the through life cost information was lower than that obtained for unit production costs. Consequently through life cost was used as one of the factors in the through life coherence benefit criterion rather than being explicitly integrated with the unit production cost to give a total ship cost.

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Benefit Criteria

The five benefit criteria were:

• A performance criterion assessed the contribution made in meeting the Customers capability management strategy. Where applicable the performance assessment utilised Operational Analysis. It also considered growth potential, future proofing, platform impact, and complement impact.

• A through-life coherence criterion assessed the coherence with the non-equipment DLODs over the potential 25 year life of the ship. This tended to focus on logistics including fuel, ammunition, maintenance and obsolescence, infrastructure, training and personnel. Where reliable through life cost data was available this was provided to the domain based workshops to inform the assessment of this criterion. Lessons identified from the Astute, Type 45 and Queen Elizabeth Class programmes indicated that the through life cost of the support solution (through life cost to defence) must be the major focus in determining a balance of capability and affordability.

• A programme coherence criterion assessed the probability of being able to develop an option in the timescales required to support the FSC C1 design and build programme. This criterion focused on technology maturity and the level to which a new technology is funded and included in other organisations’ future plans.

• An industrial coherence criterion assessed DIS compliance. It considered how a particular equipment option integrated with the defence technology strategy, sovereign capacity, capability and supportability as well as its export potential.

• The risk and probability of success criteria qualitatively assessed the probability that the option would deliver the stated benefits to the FSC programme. It considered schedule alignment, funding maturity, technical maturity as well as any necessary access to foreign technology.

Scoring the Benefit Criteria for the Options

At the domain based workshops the benefit criteria for each option within a capability function were scored on a scale of 0 to 100, where 100 represented the option which provided the best future benefit and 0 the option which represented the least future benefit or no benefit if ‘None’ was included in the option choices. The remaining options in the capability function were assigned a score representing the consensus judgement of the workshop relative to the best and least attractive options.

If the benefit of selecting an option was considered to be identical to selecting another option they were both given the same score. Equity3 always converts the preference scale for any set of options to 0 to 100 by simple linear conversion thus preserving the ratios of the differences. The results of the domain based

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workshops were captured in the Equity3 model for presentation at the decision conference.

THE DECISION CONFERENCE

The Process

The decision conference was employed to achieve an effective and transparent decision making process across multiple stakeholder groups. The process provided a framework for evaluating the relative benefit of alternative mixes of FSC C1 capabilities within the target budget. A summary of the result of the domain based workshops was supplied to all decision conference attendees as a briefing pack. At the decision conference the Programme Board, supported by a wide range of stakeholders, ranked each of the capability functions. The ranking identified where the gain in improvement of moving from the least preferred option to the most preferred option was most desired by the customer. This was carried out separately for each of the first four benefit criteria and different levels of score were applied to each benefit criteria for each option. The Programme Board then ranked the importance of the first four benefit criteria. Risk was a straight multiplier to the scores and had no comparative weighting. These weightings were then entered into Equity3. The Equity3 model then combined the complete weighted range of individual assessments of each capability. The Programme Board was then presented with the relative cost effectiveness of the capabilities.

Preliminary Results

Fig 6 shows the initial output from Equity3. The leaf shape shows the full range of combinations of the capability options plotted with cost on the horizontal axis and benefit on the vertical access.

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FIG.6 - INITIAL EQUITY3 RESULTS

Point P shows where the starting point design lay in the overall trade space. Point A shows how the same level of overall benefit could be achieved for a significantly lower cost while point B shows how, for a similar cost, a significant increase in benefit could be achieved. The location of the trade space frontier, ACB, is beneficial as it is above the low cost high benefit options but is below the low benefit high cost options. Point C shows where the maximum benefit could be achieved at the affordability limit.

One of the striking features of the preliminary results was that high cost, high ship impact features, typically associated with the Maritime Interdiction high level characteristic, were not part of the maximum benefit solution at the affordability limit. The overall process had favoured smaller items from other high level characteristics.

Capability Optimisation

The Programme Board reviewed the range of options in each capability function and removed some low level options where it was considered that the capability was too far below the acceptable performance limit and also removed some of the higher options where it was considered that the potential benefit available was either too far beyond the requirement or unaffordable. The result of this process was two fold. Firstly it refined the trade space for the identification of the affordable solution and secondly it identified a reduced trade space for the assessment phase. In conjunction with the reduction of the trade space options the evolving ship configuration was scrutinised and several variations in the configuration of capability options made to reflect essential needs of the customer.

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These two processes resolved the shortfall in the Maritime Interdiction high level characteristic

The Programme Board had a series of sensitivity investigations completed on the weightings allowing different stakeholder perspectives to be explored. Although this introduced some minor variations in the order of the selected capabilities it did not significantly change the overall balance of capability in the most cost effective solution.

The use of Equity3 in this process enabled the least beneficial items to be removed from the design point to allow the desired features to be included within the affordability constraint. The instant play-back of results, which can be seen by all participants, helped to generate new perspectives, and to stimulate new insights about the issues.

Fig 7 shows how the trade space evolved in Equity with the original trade space shown as the lighter larger region and the reduced trade space as the darker inner region. The resulting configuration P is very close to the optimum cost benefit line.

FIG.7 - FINAL EQUITY3 RESULTS

Decision Conference Lessons Learnt and Output

In the conference concern was expressed over the cost of the sump items compared to the cost of the items in the trade space. This was in part due to the assumptions made in the programme on the use of government furnished equipment for some elements of the combat system. It did however identify that

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that the cost of the sump was very significant in identifying an affordable design and a significant sump cost reduction target was defined.

The need to adjust the ship configuration to meet essential requirements suggests that the interaction of the domain based workshop scoring and the Programme Board weighting process was not always robust. Some of the scoring by the domain based workshops did not sufficiently differentiate the benefit between a very low capability and higher capabilities. Preparation for future decision conferences will need to investigate performance scores in these domain areas. The adjustments made by the Programme Board enabled a successful outcome for the FSC project.

The final configuration derived at the decision conference was very similar, in terms of its main capabilities and characteristics, to the starting point design. This demonstrated a consistency in the performance requirement of the customer and also that the funding lines established from the S2C2 work were robust.

The closeness of the decision conference solution to the starting point design also reduced the risk of sump variations causing a ship size and cost increase in the subsequent validation activities.

THE INTIAL GATE BASELINE

The output of the decision conference was the definition of a typical ship configuration that was further developed and validated as a representative design solution that provided the required level of performance and was affordable. This was then termed the Baseline Design, however it should be noted that the Baseline Design is only one representative point that demonstrates an affordable capability. The Baseline Design went through an extensive assurance review by members of the Defence Equipment and Support organisation including a Concept and Technology Review supported by NDP industry members. The programme also went through a scrutiny process prior to Initial Gate to provide evidence to the Investment Approvals Board that the programme would deliver value for money, be affordable through life and would be coherent with the departments’ resource accounting and budgeting framework. Fig 8 shows a view of the typical solution developed. Table 1 shows the principle characteristics of the Baseline Design.

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FIG.8 - PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE INITIAL GATE BASELINE DESIGN FOR FSC

TABLE 1 - Principal Characteristics of the Initial Gate Baseline Design for FSC

Displacement (Basic)

6125 tonnes

Top Speed

28 knots +

Length Overall

149 m

Cruise Speed

18 knots

Beam Overall

21 m

The propulsion system for the Baseline Design, selected on the basis of marginally lower purchase cost (propulsion equipment and ship impact cost), was a hybrid Combined Diesel Electric or Gas Turbine system. Three medium speed diesel generators provide hotel load and supply two shaft-mounted DC electric motors for quiet and economic propulsion up to cruise speed. An emergency generator would also be provided. A single gas turbine provides the drive for higher speed, via a splitter/reduction gearbox arrangement, to two fixed pitch propellers. Integrated Electric Propulsion remains a viable option, because of the additional availability and flexibility benefits it offers and work continues to refine and assess the remaining options, prior to the final down-selection.

A medium calibre gun complements the 16 strike length vertical launch cells which provide the flexibility to launch a range of weapons in the future. The provision of a Mission Bay capable of carrying 4 large rigid inflatable boats and the provision of specific accommodation provides a significant special forces and maritime interdiction capability. A typical Mission Bay configuration is illustrated in Fig 9.

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FIG.9 - VIEW OF POSSIBLE MISSION BAY CONFIGURATION

Procurement and integration risk will be reduced by the pull through of primary AAW components from the Type 23 Capability Sustainment Programme which includes the Future Local Area Air Defence System, ARTISAN the 3D Medium Range Radar and UK Cooperative Engagement Capability. The ASW Sonar System will be based on enhancements to the highly capable Sonar 2087 active towed array system and a significant array technology refresh to the current fleet standard bow Sonar 2050. It is anticipated that these systems will eventually be further integrated together with the surface ship torpedo defence system to form an overall ASW system. The Merlin helicopter will provide the off board elements of the ASW package. In addition anti ship missiles, small calibre guns and an electronic warfare system will be fitted.

CONCLUSION

The concept phase of the FSC has seen the initiation of a new commercial construct evolved from the DIS along with a new contracting strategy based on the MOD retaining responsibility for major decisions and risk within a project. This new environment has successfully delivered a concept phase in which the design to cost approach has been at the fore front and industry and MOD have successfully worked together in a joint team environment. Over 200 whole ship

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options were investigated and costed in a nine month period. A multi criteria decision making process was used in a decision conference environment to ensure that a high performance affordable Baseline was defined for the initial gate submission. This Baseline was developed as a representative solution and it completed technical assurance and scrutiny reviews before being submitted for approval by the Investment Approval Board

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The work described could not have been completed without the support of Arke for the cost modelling work and of Catalyze for facilitating the decision conference. The support of the entire NDP team and their parent companies and organisations in developing all the engineering and process behind the work described is acknowledged.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the UK Ministry of Defence or HM Government.

© Crown Copyright 2010. Reproduced with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office and UK MOD