Suppliers | Our commitment to industry

Introduction to an Australian supply chain

Our Australian Industry Capability Development Plan is a roadmap designed to Australianise the supply chain of a sovereign Australian naval shipbuilding and sustainment industry.

To achieve this, we base our approach on two simple principles:

Australian industry capability can be accessed as long as the Enterprise knows about it.
Australian industry capability can be developed as long as the relevant economic levers are applied.

So far, this has seen us establish relationships with more than 250 Australian suppliers. In line with our plan, and aligned with the Commonwealth’s objectives, we have long-term contractual relationships with our supply chain partners.

Not only does this provide security for SMEs for them to invest in training, development and innovation, but it also fosters collective efforts to achieve best practice and improved outcomes for industry and our customers.

We are committed to achieving high levels of Australian Industry Capability (AIC) to support the Commonwealth in achieving a robust, flexible and scalable supply chain.

Industry engagement

Our pioneering approach to industry engagement has enabled us to develop a unique and much closer relationship with Australian industry than other prime contractors, particularly with SMEs. Together, we focus on delivering outcomes for the Commonwealth rather than our suppliers being protective about workshare. At the core of this relationship is a commitment to Australian industry capability development, and not simply maximising content.

This approach, combined with the Commonwealth’s investment in long‐term collaborative‐based contracts for naval sustainment, is giving SMEs a sense of confidence and optimism about the future and provided them the ‘head room’ to look at strategic investments in growing and upskilling their business.

The main outcome our Australian industry strategy targets is a stronger, more competitive local supply chain that can support the sustainment of our customers’ naval assets, with less reliance on international OEMs.

We do this through:

Broad and ongoing industry engagement in partnership with government and industry organisations such as AIDN, CDIC and ICN
Long term partnerships enabling industry to invest and develop their capability
Establishing an AIC development roadmap providing a prioritised plan for the development of industry capability for ships and assets that we support.

Our partnership approach – HMAS Toowoomba

Fundamental to the philosophy behind our Inclusive Prime model is our approach to partnerships. NSM do not compete to deliver effective, efficient naval solutions; we complement.

We seek to strategically align ourselves with key companies within Australia’s naval sector, including ship designers, ship builders and OEMs of major systems. These strategic partners are integrated into our services and provide access to important technical data, knowledge and capabilities.

Ability to integrate overseas OEMs into Australianised processes

NSM understands how important it is to work effectively with our customers’ existing support arrangements for internationally sourced systems, equipment and assets. As NSM is not an OEM for any naval equipment or systems, this means that we can establish close working relationships where OEMs can share technical data and commercial information with complete confidence it is suitably safeguarded.

We also work with OEMs to integrate them into our Australianised process, formally incentivising them as part of our team, through the flow down of relevant supply chain performance measures and jointly sharing in our success.