Vessel Maintenance
Optimization

Rules & Requirements

An eligible applicant can submit one proposal per challenge. Applications can be submitted in English or French.

Deadline: April 28, 2023 at 5:00pm AST

Application must include:

• Description of Solution & Impact
• Organization capability and resources (financial statement submission will be required for winner)
• Experience with methodology development, CMB, naval domain
• Level of innovation of proposed solution

Expected Solution Proposals

• The methodology must support the evaluation of CBM for any naval system, sub-system, or equipment.
• The methodology must evaluate the stakeholder team associated with the target CBM solution for legal context, financial responsibilities, current In-Service Support (ISS) context, CBM warranty and/or Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements, security requirements, physical access, and CBM reporting requirements.

Eligibility

COVE’s Naval Technology Innovation Challenge will be Pan-Atlantic in scope and open to commercial and non-commercial organizations registered to do business in Atlantic Canada.

The following participants may submit an application on their own:

• Small and medium-sized businesses
• Indigenous organizations and groups

The following participants may submit an application only when partnered with an organization from the above group:

• Post-secondary institutions
• Other for-profit and not-for-profit organizations

All organizations must meet the following requirements:

• Companies must be Atlantic Canada firms.
• A consortium of companies may submit combined applications. One partner must be incorporated in Atlantic Canada.
• The proposed solution must not be currently available on the market (Technology Readiness Level [TRL] seven or earlier).
• Innovation is required.

Evaluation Process

The evaluation will consist of a panel review of all applications based on weighted values per category (solution fit 25%, expertise 30%, resources 30%, innovation 5%, timeline 10%). The selection panel is comprised of members from COVE, Thales, National Research Council, and an industry partner. After applications close, the selection panel will score with an assessment package. Once completed, scores will be combined and a final meeting of the panelists to review results and agree on a selected company will take place. The winner will be announced once a selection is made. Winners will be announced online, and COVE will work with the applicant prior to sharing any information publicly. Financial statements must be submitted by the winner.

Challenge Description

Challenge #1: Provide a methodology to evaluate naval condition-based maintenance solutions.

Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM), which leverages Digital Twin technologies to predict failures before they occur based on the condition of equipment, offers ship owners and operators the opportunity to improve system availability and reduce operating costs. Not all condition-based maintenance solutions deliver these results. The challenge is to develop and test a methodology that assesses the technical and financial viability of CBM solutions for the naval domain before they are implemented.

Methodology requirements:

The methodology must support the evaluation of CBM for any naval system, sub-system, or equipment.

The methodology must evaluate the stakeholder team associated with the target CBM solution for legal context, financial responsibilities, current In-Service Support (ISS) context, CBM warranty and/or Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements, security requirements, physical access, and CBM reporting requirements. The stakeholder team must be composed of:

• Ship owner(s)
• Ship operator(s)
• Ship maintainer(s)
• Equipment OEM(s)

The methodology must evaluate the availability and usability of data:

• Data needs
• Data available
• Data Communications services required
• Data Communications services available
• Physical access to data
• Legal access to data
• Security classification and/or export restriction to data
• Ownership and stewardship of ship data
• Ownership and stewardship of derived data
• Ownership and stewardship of personal data

The methodology must consider historical data:

• Failure rates, Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
• Criticality of failure events to the mission and ship
• Cost of failure events, real ($) and intangible
• Cost of repairs, time to repair
• Cost of the legacy maintenance method

From the above, the methodology must estimate:

• Capital cost of the CBM system implementation
• Operating cost of status quo and CBM system implementation
• Availability of the target system with status quo and CBM system implementation

The methodology must compare the value of a CBM solution to a replacement of all or part of the target system/sub-system/equipment.

The methodology must allow for a conclusion that improves upon legacy maintenance methods without the implementation of CBM.

The methodology must conclude with a go/no-go recommendation which must include:

• A risk assessment based on providing a recommendation based on incomplete data.
• A ledger of quantified/estimated benefits and costs and associated risk and accuracy factors.
• A qualitative assessment respecting the recommendation.

Testing the methodology:

• The methodology must be employed on one AJISS use case, to be agreed upon at a later date.
• The methodology must be revised and re-issued based on lessons learned.

Milestone:

Delivery of a first version of the methodology to be reviewed by Thales (or other stakeholders if required) before it is employed on AJISS.