The Armament Systems Program Office (ARMTSPO) within Land Systems Division (LSD) is part of the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) and is responsible for the acquisition, sustainment, and disposal of Australian Defence Force (ADF) small arms and direct fire weapons used by the armed services. LES has been engaged for a period of 3 months to address the backlog of 129 ECPs in accordance with SOP (LSD) 12-0-302.

LES has been awarded a grant to deliver Integrated Logistic Support workshops in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and one other location to be determined by DIIC. LES has been awarded the grant in recognition of our established and proven ILS courses and our extensive industry experience. The one day workshops are designed as an introduction for management, engineering, maintenance, procurement, supply and project staff of SME's who have any interaction with the technical based acquisition and sustainment projects, processes and products, be they Defence, Defence Industry or organisations planning to enter into Defence projects.

Scheduled for February/March 2012, LES will advertise the workshops through AIDN with registrations through the LES web site.

BAE Systems Australia, Aerospace Division, is currently developing ILS products in support of the AP-3C Block Upgrade Program. Logistic Engineering Services (LES) has been contracted to provide a specialist in the field of Logistic Support Analysis (LSA) to update the existing Electronic Surveillance Measures (ESM) System LSA Record (LSAR). Selection of LES staff for this task further enhances the position of LES as the Industry leader in the development and management of data IAW DEF(AUST)5692.

LES has been awarded a contract by BAE Systems Australia, Maritime Division, to provide a skilled manager/practitioner to support the management of the Logistic Support Analysis Record (LSAR) for the Landing Helicopter Docks (LHD) being acquired by the Commonwealth. The LHD will be the largest ship to serve with the Royal Australian Navy and will provide a quantum leap in capability for the ADF. LES will supply the LSAR manager for an initial 12 month contract.

On the 25th Oct 2011, LES was presented with a letter recognising its contributions to the Australian Defence Organisation (ADO) under the newly-launched Letter of Recognised Supply (LoRS) Scheme.

The LoRS program is designed to help sustain Australian Defence industry capability by acknowledging the successful supply by an Australian Company to the Australian Defence Organisation. The Letter of Recognised Supply provides evidence that the company has met the standards of supply demanded by the Australian Defence Organisation and that products and services were supplied on time, on budget and to specification.

For more information on the LoRS Scheme, click here.

Australian Aerospace (AA) is currently planning a servicing interval extension for the C-130J with a view to improve fleet availability and increase annual operating hours. LES has been contracted to assist in the data review and provide justification for the servicing interval extension and eventually the repackaging of the PSS tasks utilising LES's proprietary software application, eMRD.

Phase 1 of the project began commenced mid September 2011 with the combined AA-LES team reviewing C-130J EMERALD data for Maintenance Interval Extension Requests (MIER) which could provide justification for the planned servicing interval extensions AA intends to implement. C-130J PSS tasks are also being reviewed for safety implications that may arise as a consequence of the planned servicing interval extensions.

Although LES will maintain a constant presence at RAAF Base Richmond, a portion of the contracted work will be completed at the LES head office in Port Melbourne Victoria with the AA project manager making regular visits to ensure the project schedule is maintained.

BAE Aerospace is currently developing ILS products in support of the AP-3C Block Upgrade Program. Logistic Engineering Services has been contracted to provide specialist Technical Authoring and Training Development personnel to assist BAE Aerospace in the development of technical documentation and training products for the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) and Electronic Surveillance Measures (ESM) System Upgrade components of the project.

Logistic Engineering Services Pty Ltd (LES) has been awarded a contract by Integrated Design and Engineering Solutions Pty Ltd (IDES) to provide ILS Services in support of the provision of a Mobile Proof Gun Mount (MPGM) trailer to support the Australian Defence Force's Joint Proof Experimental Unit (JPEU) at Port Wakefield, South Australia. The scope of work includes the drafting of the Integrated Support Plan, the Technical Data Plan, the User Handbook and the Training Recommendation Report. LES will also provide the relevant data tables for the Technical Data List, the Codification Data List and the Recommended Provisioning List. LES has extensive experience in the development, delivery and review of all ILS products for both acquisition projects and in-service organisations.

QDS has purchased additional eMRD licences to support the in-service management of the Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) platform. QDS have used eMRD since the commencement of the project and were the launch customer for eMRD Companion - a 'bolt-on' application to eMRD that compares LSAR files against a baseline to identify changes.

LES' eMRD software is currently in use on a variety of land, sea and air projects in both the acquisition and in-service environments. Current licence holders include:

• BAE Australia
• Marshall Aerospace
• Australian Aerospace
• Lockheed Martin Australia
• Thales Australia
• Tactical Fighter System Program Office (TFSPO)
• Aircraft Maintenance Policy Review Team (AMPRT) - Aerospace Systems Division (ASD)
• Qantas Defence Services
• The Asset Partnership
• Tasman Aviation Enterprises

Logistic Engineering Services Training (LEST) is having a busy end of the year with many organisations now seeing its training in Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) and Maintenance Requirements Determination (MRD) as a valuable adjunct to their skills inventory. Skilling Australian Defence Industry (SADI), which is a Defence initiative to up-skill the Defence industry to meet the evolving and ever increasing Defence demands for quality Acquisition and Sustainment services, has provided a wide range of funding that permits these organisations to gain these skill sets.

In August, LEST provided the four day, ILS Introductory course to 16 staff from Daronmont Technologies in their facilities at Technology Park, Mawson Lakes, SA. Shane Layt, Training Manager for LES, said "It seemed a little strange at first because we had a course of 16 very qualified Engineers in the room. We usually had a very diverse group of Warehousing, Tech Authors, ILS personnel in the course, but these guys were very good value and we believe gained some very good insights into the ILS world from the course.

LEST has provided a number of ILS and MRD courses throughout the year with a number of courses still on the books for 2011-12 and many have gained funding for these courses through SADI.

LES has signed up to the 21st Century Supply Chain (SC21) initiative sponsored by the Australian Government through Enterprise Connect and the Defence Industry Innovation Centre, as part of its continual improvement program. LES became the first supplier of 'Services' to be assessed under the initiative within Australia and has achieved a Silver Award for Business Excellence at its initial assessment, its Operational Excellence in currently undergoing assessment by Enterprise Connect.

The LES Supply Chain Improvement Program (SCIP) is being implemented in conjunction with a number of its key Customers and is focused on implementing 'Lean' principles and techniques across all of its services and business operations.

In addition, the annual Surveillance Audit conducted on 8th June 2011 by SAI Global on the LES Quality System concluded with the recommendation for continuing certification to AS/NZS ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems Requirements, once again with no major areas of concern identified.

BAE Aerospace is currently developing the ILS products in support of the AP-3C Traffic Alert & Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) project. LES has been contracted to provide specialist LSA personnel to populate LSA data into the AP-3C Weapon System Database for delivery to the client.

The TCAS 1 is an airborne system used for detecting and tracking transponder equipped aircraft, to determine range, relative bearing and relative altitude to determine if a possible collision hazard exists. If a hazard exits TCAS issues visual and aural advisories to the aircrew of possible conflict.

LES is pleased to announce Aerospace System Division's (ASD) Aerospace Maintenance Policy Review Team (AMPRT) recently purchased a number of eMRD licenses to enhance AMPRT's ability to efficiently conduct maintenance policy reviews and updates to Weapon System Databases (WSDB). AMPRT joins the growing number of Defence Agencies and Defence Industry organisations to rollout eMRD in support of their Maintenance Requirements determination (MRD) and LSAR data management functions.

AMPRT was recently formed to provide MRD support services to Aerospace System Program Offices (SPOs) and will no doubt make a significant impact in the drive for more effective and efficient maintenance policies across all Defence Aerospace assets.

This recent purchase highlight's the growing recognition of the efficiency and effectiveness gains that are made through the use of LES software products.

LES has been working on ensuring our software products are kept up-to-date with regards to the latest development environments and programming languages. To this end, we have undertaken to convert all our products from a Visual Basic 6 development environment to Microsoft .Net (pronounced Dot Net). The reason for this is twofold:

• Firstly, our Visual Basic 6 development environment is way past its use by date and, while it has served us well, we need to ensure the longevity and supportability of our products into the future. Developing in the .Net environment allows our applications to take advantage of the feature of the .Net environment. See this link for more information.
• Secondly, we are planning on expanding our suite of ILS software tools with the introduction of eLSA. eLSA will be a 'bolt on' application, much like eLORA, that uses the same database layer as eMRD. eLSA (together with eMRD) will provide the user with a completely compliant DEF(AUST)5692 toolset (and more). In order to ensure that we get off on the right foot with eLSA development, our existing software applications must exist in the current development environment: Microsoft .Net. More on eLSA in future.

eMRD is our flagship application and it has gained some enhancements through the conversion to .Net. This conversion provides enhanced access to underlying functions and libraries as well as more efficient code execution which should result in better user performance. We have also incorporated some enhanced functionality over and above the current version of eMRD. Some of these enhancements are:

• New look and feel
• Enhance back-end data management particularly the ability to save, share and recall ad hoc queries
• Enhanced database management and copy functionality
• Enhanced Functional/Physical LCN focus on main screen
• Multiple illustration linking per WAC
• Export to MS Project now has Finish to Start linking for tasks
• Context sensitive DED specific help
• Enhanced User Security settings with the addition of a Read Only user (Note: permissions are set per EIAC)
• The ability to launch other LES applications

eLORA and eMRD Companion have also benefitted from feature upgrades while being converted to the .Net environment. BAE (Williamstown) has been particularly helpful in the eLORA enhancements.

One other change will be the way these applications are installed on a user machine. Currently, each application is autonomous in its installation architecture which means the duplication of common use library files. LES has overhauled the installation architecture ensuring all LES .Net applications are installed in the one directory ("LES Tools" by default). This will ensure all applications use the same common library files and it will also make eMRD 'aware' of other LES applications installed on that machine.

Applications are in final testing and help file production is on the way. We expect to release the .Net suite (V3.x) by the end of May 2011.

LES has been awarded a contract by BAE Australia to provide logistic analysts in support of the Commonwealth's acquisition of two Landing Helicopter Docks (LHD). The LHD will be the largest ship to service with the Royal Australian Navy and will provide a quantum leap in capability for the ADF. LES will supply the five analysts under an initial 3-6 month contract to complete Level of Repair Analysis (LORA), Logistic Support Analysis of mechanical and communications systems and Onboard Allowance List (OAL) development and validation.

LES has been awarded a contract by BAE Australia to provide technical authors in support of the Commonwealth's acquisition of two Landing Helicopter Docks (LHD). The LHD will be the largest ship to service with the Royal Australian Navy and will provide a quantum leap in capability for the ADF. LES will supply the three technical authors under an initial 12 month contract.