Improving safety and availability of the UK royal navy submarine fleet: An asset management perspective

The Royal Navy submarine fleet provides a crucial military capability to the UK government. Managing the submarine assets involves critical decision making processes to ensure the key drivers of safety and availability are optimised. Maximising availability of the fleet, whilst ensuring the continuing safety of each submarine, relies on optimising the maintenance schedule over the life cycle of each asset. Drydocking the submarine is necessary to carry out certain crucial maintenance activities. This results in reduced availability and significant cost. This paper describes how an improved Asset Management Strategy was developed involving a novel inspection system and decision-making process which has now been deployed on four submarines, with a significant positive impact on decision outcomes worth millions of pounds.