29 Jun 2021
The Ministry of Defense (MOD) has awarded a five year contract to BAE Systems to provide a data management system to multiple ships in the Royal Navy fleet including the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, Type 45 destroyers and the new Type 26 frigates.

Improving ship availability

The BAE Systems tool, known as Support Information Knowledge Management (S-IKM), allows secure and efficient management of the vast quantity of data that is required to provide on-shore support and maintenance for complex warships, including technical manuals, schematics and part numbers.

S-IKM is designed to provide faster and more cost-effective support

Using data analytics to inform through-life support and improve ship availability, S-IKM is designed to provide faster and more cost-effective support to ensure the right information is at the right place at the right time. It will play a fundamental role in the digital ambitions of the Royal Navy, drastically improving the operational support to service personnel at sea who will be able to reliably and easily access the information they need exactly when they need it.

Better support warships

S-IKM also provides a convenient and easily-deployable capability to allow the support of warships around the world. To better support warships, data needs to be shared efficiently and securely across the support enterprise, comprising the Royal Navy, the MOD and dozens of industrial suppliers. S-IKM enables this while allowing the MOD to retain ownership and control of its data.

"This contract is a critical part of supporting the Royal Navy’s digital transformation. By delivering sophisticated data analytics and through-life support tools, we can significantly improve ship availability. Combining our digital expertise with a deep understanding of the Royal Navy and a genuine commitment to innovate, I’m confident we can make a real difference to warship support," said David Mitchard, Managing Director, BAE Systems Maritime Services.

Ship support activities

BAE Systems developed S-IKM by identifying and integrating specialist technologies

Collaborating across industry, BAE Systems developed S-IKM by identifying and integrating specialist technologies from other expert suppliers. These include Eurostep’s ShareAspace product lifecycle management (PLM) collaboration software, TIBCO's data management & analytics platform, and Genpact’s Cora SeQuence business process management software. 

Combined, these provide a powerful tool to allow the configuration and management of technical information across a wide range of ship support activities. This capability could also provide benefit to other complex defence assets, across the sea, air and land domains.

Resilient data tools

"We’re proud to have won this highly competitive contract and to build on our support to the Royal Navy. As well as our digital solution, which will now support warships in the UK, we have another digital product based on similar principles which we’re already delivering to the Royal Canadian Navy, supporting the Halifax Class of frigates. Our digital capabilities are defining a new era of cutting-edge resilient data tools which can service complex international defence requirements," said Graham Farnell, Engineering & Digital Services Director, BAE Systems Maritime Services.
 

The S-IKM contract will be delivered as part of the MOD’s £1billion Common Support Model (CSM). The CSM framework combines existing separate support agreements for individual ship types into a single, more efficient and more manageable model. The result is set to improve the performance of service providers.