Submarine Delivery Agency

Ensuring nuclear submarines operate safely and at maximum level of effectiveness is a significant technical challenge that requires close coordination between the Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA), prime contractors (including Babcock), and thousands of companies in the wider supply chain.

The SDA operates a rigorous technical assurance system, to ensure safety and quality in the submarine programme, which requires Babcock to pre-approve special processes that its suppliers use in the manufacture of materials.

Through collaborative working, improvement opportunities were identified to improve the availability of materials to the submarine programme by removing process inefficiencies.

Babcock and the SDA followed the proven DMAIC improvement methodology, to implement process improvements which provided sub-tier suppliers with clearer specifications to improve the delivery of material into the submarine programme.

These improvements resulted in a resource benefit of c.

24,000 resource days per annum and helped to improve the overall efficiency of the supply chain.