"Successful delivery of the programme to time, cost and quality appears to be unachievable. There are major issues which, at this stage, do not appear to be manageable or resolvable within the current Business Case approval. The programme needs to be re-baselined."
Note that currently, Ajax "fails" on time, cost AND quality. And that the current programme will not deliver. So, the current £5.5bn budget is going to be busted. And as for dates?
"The Delivery Confidence Assessment is rated Red because consistent and compelling evidence was found that programme will not deliver the planned number, of Ajax (family) armoured fighting vehicles to the British army at the required/ contracted operational capability..."
"... and price in time to support planned operational deployments in 2023-24 and the Full Operating Capability (FOC) in 2025."
So, all currently published IOC/FOC dates are fiction. Ajax is late, and will be. Remember: Ajax was selected in 2010. 15-18yrs+ to enter service...
"A clear consequence of the issues identified above is the absence of an agreed schedule to the end of the programme. Currently there are at least two, possibly more schedules and as far as the review team can judge they are using different assumptions, risks, risk appetites..."
"...and therefore cannot be easily reconciled. The variation in results are so significant the review team looked at the most optimistic schedule (provided by GD) and concluded it was only deliverable if around 8-12mths schedule slip to date could be recovered, no further slip."
"...occurred for the remainder of the programme, heroic assumptions were delivered and most importantly all significant risk was understood and quantified in the plan. Given the history since 2014 and since Recast none of those conditions had been met..."
"...assuming they all would be going forward was considered as very low probability. The review team understand DE&S is preparing a risk adjusted plan for the FOC Review note. This was not available to the review team..."
"...but it was clear from the evidence gathered at interview that there was a gathering body of evidence that supported a view that FOC would be significantly later than the GD plan and very likely to be well beyond the currently planned FOC in 2025."
Basically, anyone thinking that the programme is anywhere close to getting on track is part of the problem (@ArmyCGS). What we see, and the report says we still see is the fabled "Conspiracy of Optimism": facts bad? Pretend they don't exist. And this at £3.47bn and counting.
"Returning to quality the review team heard and read a significant body of material around the current 'quality' of the AJAX platforms. For the reasons set out above the review team could find no agreement on the actual engineering maturity of the Capability Drop 1 vehicles."
"We were regularly told 90% of the Demonstration funding had been spent and only 27% of the requirement demonstrated..."
"...the fact is the Capability Drop 1 vehicles provided to the Army can only be operated safely if soldiers follow not only the normal safety case, but also detailed guidance on operation in a wide range of conditions and under stringent limitations of use..."
"... for example limiting time in the platform to 1hr 30min before crew change or speed restrictions of 20mph. These restrictions and limitations are delaying both V&V and RGT trials and will mean the Household Cavalry Regiment..."
"...cannot conduct effective collective training on the platform. The review team was told there is a real risk exposing the Field Army to the platforms in their current condition will undermine their confidence in AJAX."
The last point is devastating: the Army is so worried about the quality and state of Ajax is SO bad, that letting more in the Army see them would undermine morale!
Enjoy!
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Basically, the IPA report shows utter incontinence as regards programme management across the piece. There isn't a, "oh, it failed here" - no: it has been systematic programme failure across the board. I will quote tomorrow from the IPA report to back this up...
One key conclusion is about "hand offs" - they are badly managed. Now, in ANY programme there are times when one manger hands something over to another - that's what happens. But the IPA Ajax report seems to suggest that for a number/a lot of "hands offs", that Ajax managers...
Well, the story is finally out there: Ajax noise/vibrations is causing injuries to British Army operators. I understand that there was no pushback to the story from @DefenceHQ@DefenceHQPress, rather, it was, "yeah: it's got problems". thesun.co.uk/news/15123499/…
This metaphorical shrugging of shoulders is interesting, as in the Independent Gateway 4 Review, "It is clear from the Integrated Review, the recently published “Defence in a competitive Age and interviews with senior officers that AJAX is fundamental to the British Army’s..."
"...capability from the mid-2020s. The review team has seen no alternative plan to AJAX..." In several references, it would seem that the @ArmyCGS@BritishArmy are very committed - over-committed? - to the Ajax programme.
Having had WR CSP cancelled sine die, LM looks as if it is moving to do what had been threatened last year: closing Ampthill on the grounds that it is now uneconomic to operate. Plot twist: where are Ajax turrets built? Oh, Ampthill.
So, if Ampthill were to shut its doors, that's Ajax turret line gone, and the programme de facto cancelled. So, what can the MoD do? Well, it could find a willing bidder to buy it off LM (they tried to get GD to do it, but no dice), and keep it open;
Apache weaponry... Hearing that despite being deemed a significantly superior capability (oh, and it works, and is cheaper), MoD has decided to ditch Brimstone for AH64E, and go with JAGM. @nicholadrummond@bealejonathan@byMBDA @BeaverWestminster @benmoores2@ArmyAirCorps @
The Army Air Corps, having started off as hostile to Brimstone ("it's an RAF weapon"), seem to have been won over - but somewhere between Main Building and Abbeywood, someone/some people have been told by either of Boeing/Lockheed Martin that integrating Brimstone would be...
Before anyone says, "without it, there will be a capability gap!" Wake up: that gap is already there with a programme/system that does not work, and has little likelihood of doing so...
And, again, before anyone says that £3.36bn in 2010 money is £4.4bn in 2020 money, so, we should spend even more with a failed programme to ensure that we meet another failure?
Yes, that's right: £3.47bn with nothing to show for it, and little sign that there will be any result any time soon. Over the past 3 budget years, £1.73bn has been spent, at a time when, it is pretty obvious, that the programme has been in deep doo-doo @thepagey@wavellroom
So, at a time of non-delivery of Ajax, the contractor has received 50% of all outlays on the programme since it kicked off in 2009-10. Simple question: how can these payments continue when there is no delivery of an acceptable product?