Optimising HVAC System Availability for the Royal Australian Navy |
The Royal Australian Navy used MADE to evaluate the availability, logistics and cost impact of a design modification to the HVAC system on its Amphibious Assault Ship. By building a Digital Risk Twin, RAN gained the evidence needed to validate change, reduce failures and improve long-term sustainment outcomes.
Failures
Availability
in the DRT
Digital Risk Twin
Improving a Critical Shipboard System with Confidence
The Royal Australian Navy needed to understand the availability, logistics and cost implications of modifying the HVAC system on its Amphibious Assault Ship platform. The challenge was not just identifying underperforming equipment, but proving whether a design change would deliver measurable operational benefit over time.
To do that, RAN required more than static analysis. It needed a rigorous, model-based engineering approach capable of linking failure behaviour, maintenance burden, mission impact and sustainment cost into a single, defensible decision framework.
Using MADE, RAN created a Digital Risk Twin of the HVAC system to identify the key degrader, evaluate alternative configurations and quantify the benefit of change before implementation.
Critical System Degradation
The HVAC system was experiencing performance degradation that needed to be traced to the components driving availability loss.
Need for a Defensible Business Case
RAN needed to validate whether a replacement design would materially improve operational availability and justify investment.
Complex Data Environment
Engineering, maintenance and logistics data had to be brought together into a coherent model to support confident decision-making.
Digital Risk Twin–Driven RAMS and ILS Analysis with MADE
RAN developed a Digital Risk Twin of the LHD HVAC system containing over 9,000 components in just two months, establishing a high-fidelity model of the system and its operating parameters.
Using reliability and failure analysis, MADE identified the Fan Coil Units as the primary degrader within the HVAC system, allowing engineering effort to focus on the highest-value point of intervention.
MADE generated the analyses required to establish the maintenance baseline and support trade studies, including FMECA, Maintenance Cost Estimate, Reliability Block Diagram, Fault Tree Analysis, diagnostic analysis and maintenance task analysis.
The model was used to evaluate alternate design configurations and quantify their impact on operational availability, maintenance demand and sustainment cost across the life of the system.
The analyses validated the business case for replacing the FCUs with a new design, demonstrating a significant uplift in HVAC system operational availability and a major reduction in expected failures.
“MADE gave RAN a defensible way to connect design decisions, failure behaviour, operational availability and sustainment cost in one integrated engineering model.”
Validated Design Change. Measurable Operational Impact.
Reduction in Expected Failures
The new FCU design is expected to reduce failures by 9 times over the next 10 years, significantly improving system resilience and supportability.
Improved Operational Availability
By targeting the primary system degrader, RAN was able to validate a design change that materially improves HVAC availability on the LHD platform.
Proven Business Case for Digital Engineering
The project demonstrated that the cost of digitising the RAMS analysis process can be offset by tangible improvements in availability and reduced cost of ownership.
Digital Risk Twin Analysis Outputs
FMEA / FMECA
Automated model-based analysis identifying thousands of failure modes and how they relate to critical functions of the RAN HVAC system.
Maintenance Cost Estimate
Integrated maintenance and reporting data to establish baseline estimates for maintenance cost, spares and labour hours.
Discrete Event Simulation
Enabled trade studies through simulation of operation and maintenance events to aggregate cost, spares, labour hours and availability across a mission.
Reliability Block Diagram
Modelled hardware redundancy and system function to determine mission failure probability and expected availability based on maintenance policy.
Fault Tree Analysis
Automated fault tree analysis identified the functional threads and components most vital to mission success.
Get the Royal Australian Navy HVAC case study
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