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HMAS MELBOURNE leaves dry dock early in FFG upgrade

18 July 2006

ADI Limited's guided missile frigate (FFG) Upgrade Project is continuing its positive progress, with the second frigate undocking ahead of schedule at the company's Garden Island facility today.

The docking phase of HMAS MELBOURNE's upgrade installation was completed on Wednesday July 12, 2006 - 16 days earlier than scheduled thanks to efficiency gains achieved since ADI completed a similar installation on sister ship HMAS SYDNEY last year.

MELBOURNE will now be berthed at Garden Island to complete the remaining platform and combat system modifications, systems integration and testing.

MELBOURNE is expected to commence harbour trials late this year , with sea trials and subsequent hand back to Navy anticipated for early next year.

MELBOURNE's early undocking is the latest in a series of significant progress achievements for the $1 billon project.

ADI handed the Lead Ship - SYDNEY - back to the Royal Australian Navy in April and signed a Deed of Settlement and Release with the Commonwealth in May, formalising the project's scope reduction from six ships to four and resolving all outstanding commercial and contractual issues.

Vice President Thales Naval Australia and ADI Director of Naval Ali Baghaei said the positive schedule performance on MELBOURNE was evidence of the disciplined project management culture instilled in ADI's naval group over the last 18 months.

‘With a experienced management team, committed workforce and close working relationship with our customer ADI is again delivering successful outcomes for the FFG Upgrade project', Mr Baghaei said.

The FFG Upgrade Project represents the most sophisticated naval systems integration task ever undertaken by an Australian company involving both new technologies and legacy equipment.

Central to the upgrade is the ADI-developed Australian Distributed Architecture Combat System (ADACS). ADI is the only Australian company to have designed, developed and installed an Australian naval combat system.