13 Nov 06. Project DART (DLO/ABRO Relationship Transformation). On 7th November 2006, General Tim Tyler, DG Log Land and Peter Moore Chief Executive, ABRO signed an agreement committing to a transformation in their organizations’ relationship. Its aim is to deliver improved equipment availability to front line commands and better value for money from ABRO’s services by giving ABRO the stability to plan capacity and improvements out to 2011 and beyond. ABRO’s current deal with DG Log Land expires in April 2008, having already incorporated a one year extension from its original planned life. During this arrangement, ABRO has already undergone major transformation including a very significant “leaning” programme and, more recently, dividing the business structure into four streams which require very different types of customer service. Three of these directly support the MoD:
* Armoured Vehicles predominantly working maintenance repair and overhaul programmes for DG Log Land
* Support to HQ’s LAND, FLEET and STRIKE and related programmes for “B” vehicles
* Technical Services in the field of Electro-Optics, Weapons & Calibration
The fourth, rapidly growing, stream covers the application of ABRO’s fleet services expertise to “commercial” customers including Local Authorities, Health Services and other central government departments. Although the DART agreement does not cover this activity directly, it allows the MoD visibility of it in order to ensure that, as ABRO’s shareholder, it derives benefit from ABRO’s growth through reduced prices or increased dividends.
The DART agreement outlines:
a. Measures to assess and assure the capacity which the MoD needs ABRO to maintain in order to ensure responsive and flexible support to its needs, particularly for operations.
b. A recognition that each of ABRO’s military business streams delivers value to the customer through different services and that future contractual relationships should be tuned accordingly.
c. Measures to reduce the cost of delivery of ABRO’s services over the life of a future contract
d. The steps necessary to ensure that future DLO – ABRO contracts are consistent with the aims and implementation of the Defence Industrial Strategy including the various Contractor Logistic Support initiatives ongoing between DLO and BAE SYSTEMS and other partners.
e. A recognition of the benefits for ABRO with contractual stability for planning to implement improvements, with an agreement that new contractual agreements will run initially to 2011 with a rolling extension thereafter.
A joint DLO / ABRO implementation team will now begin the hard work of performing the required capacity assessments, planning performance improvement activity and drafting detailed contractual wording with the aim of agreeing new business arrangements in detail, towards the middle of next year.
At the signing of the agreement, Peter Moore, ABRO’s Chief Executive said “DART is great news for ABRO. It gives us the framework to plan for the future, to improve our services to MoD in both service levels and cost-effectiveness, and provides a stable platform for growth”. General Tim Tyler added “ABRO provides vital services to the DLO and UK Land Forces and shows its value, in particular, by first class support to operations. This agreement gives us the ability to assure access to that capacity and flexibility whilst improving its value for money.”
This announcement is good news for ABRO as it not only enables the organisation to continually develop its key capabilities within the MoD it also allows ABRO to develop its overall capabilities for Programmes such as FRES and OUVS where it is seen as playing a key role in not only vehicle assembly but also Through Life Support. Although BAE sees itslef as the ‘Custodian of the Fleet’ there is little doubt that the in-depth knowledge of the Army’s armoured vehicles resides at ABRO. Thus, ABRO is likely to remain independent prior to and du