TEAM NORSTA: Putting aside traditional rivalries and forming alliances to deliver to the Royal Australian Navy

NORSTA Maritime in Queensland is reshaping naval sustainment through an innovative Regional Maintenance Provider model while creating a pipeline of apprenticeships and opportunities for SMEs in the region.

A 100 per cent Australian-owned joint venture, NORSTA Maritime recently won its bid to service the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) fleet between two Cairns shipyards Norship and Tropical Reef Shipyards.

Nova Systems Maritime Program Manager James Luck said his company was now delivering on its extensive maritime expertise alongside partners Norship, Tropical Reef Shipyard and Secora, with all companies committed to building a strong and sustainable sovereign capability.

Each company has committed to employing at least 10 per cent apprentices across its workforce as the joint venture creates more local jobs, training, and expertise.

“At Nova Systems, we know boats and the local shipyards bring on-the-ground expertise to create an innovative solution to servicing the nation’s naval fleet that builds on our national expertise right across the region,” Mr Luck said.

“It also delivers work to an ever-growing supply chain that is, in turn, employing more apprentices and providing more training to strengthen the national maritime workforce.”

Secora Managing Director John Grout said NORSTA drew together the right mix of capabilities to best sustain the RAN’s fleet in Cairns.

“We’re a values-based company and we have four values – honour, accountability, respect, and trust, and we found a strong alignment with the partners. The alignment from a values perspective with our partners is important to us,” he said.

?The direction was supported by the Head of Maritime Systems at Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group, Rear Admiral Wendy Malcolm, who said it was important to form alliances to address and create future maritime opportunities.

“I guess that’s the big thing from my perspective …this is not so much about competing against one another, we’ve all got to get together to deliver this, it’s going to be so big, we can’t do it without each other,” she said.

Rear Admiral Malcolm said the Department of Defence wanted to learn from this first Regional Maintenance Provider experience as three more centres are planned for strategic locations around the nation in Sydney, Darwin and Western Australia.

In terms of relationships with around 250 SMEs in the Cairns region, Tropical Reef Shipyard Business Development Manager Andrew Wagner said the existing shipyards wanted to build on trust they already had created by delivering work to support business growth.

“There’s been a growth pattern there by using local SMEs, working with them and collaborating with the environment there, its’s a strong SME community,” he said.

Norship Chief Executive Officer Olav Groot said his company’s maritime expertise reaches back to the 1800s and “we know to deliver these services and to take a long-term perspective, it’s going to be fundamentally important that we develop a future workforce.”

The company already works closely with the Queensland TAFE Great Barrier Reef International Marine College.

“These opportunities being created will be exciting for the next generation if we deliver long-term stability and provide an ecosystem where they can see a career,” Mr Groot said.

“Through Team NORSTA we took a longer-term perspective to the work that’s in front of us. We really wanted to move away from the ad hoc short-term sort of purchase-order level of competition that we face and that our supply chain faces as well. This disables the supply chain rather than enabling the supply chain.”

*Representatives from the companies that make up NORSTA Maritime, along with CASG Head of Maritime RADM Wendy Malcolm, discussed effective teaming and the formation of Team NORSTA to response to the needs of Defence during Nova Systems’ inaugural SME Summit held during the Indo Pacific Expo.?