Feature 2
The new organisation brings together
facilities and resources at Devonport,
Rosyth, and Faslane, with responsibility
for maintenance of the Royal Navy’s
submarine flotilla and majority of the
surface ships.
Information management and technical
support are indeed fundamental to the in-
service support role, and a central element
in delivering cost-efficient support and
military capability. The consolidated
organisation is responsible for some of the
most innovative information management
systems, including the Collaborative
Working Environment (CWE), which
provides the backbone across which
software applications and information
can be shared between the MoD and key
industrial stakeholders including BAE
Systems, VT Group, and Rolls-Royce.
Established by Babcock Marine and
hosted from Keynsham, CWE currently
services over 2000 users across the MoD
and industry, and its pioneering use has
facilitated considerable cost-savings in
the support of Royal Navy ships and
submarines.
Similarly, dedicated information
management systems also developed by
Babcock Marine play an equally important
role. Bethel points to the Submarine
Definition Database (SDD), which stores
the configuration information and framed
the basis for the surface ship equivalent;
the Submarine Engineering Data Records
(SEDR); V-Bridge, the interactive datum
pack management system; and the Product
Information Explorer (PIE), which has
provided the key through which build
data, locked into a proprietary software
application, can be ‘freed’ into an open
environment that is far better suited to
effective and efficient platform support.
‘A number of these are key to the wide
ranging technical support delivered to the
entire nuclear submarine flotilla by Babcock
Marine, supported by BMT and SEA,
via the Submarine Support Management
Group (SSMG),’ Bethel said. ‘It’s a role that
Formation of Babcock Marine has also
created a large system testing and
commissioning organisation.
Warship Technology May 2008 19
WT May 08 - p18+19+20.indd 19 23/04/2008 16:15:55
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