24 hours: The working life of John Barclay
The man who spearheads Serco’s support for the Royal Navy from the Yeovilton air station talks to Peter Felstead about his innovative approach to essential helicopter maintenance
There’s no such thing as a typical day at the Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton.
We perform a myriad of activities within the aviation environment – all of which carry a great weight of responsibility. Quite simply, if we get it wrong, lives could be in danger. However, many of the team are ex-military so we are used to working under this sort of pressure.
At each station we have a number of customers, including the Royal Navy,AgustaWestland, Rolls-Royce and the Joint Helicopter Command. There are about 320 people based at Yeovilton and we are responsible for maintaining and upgrading different aircraft. We also manage a sister contract at RNAS Culdrose. This involves, for example, working on the Sea King HC .4s, a type of helicopter, on their return from Afghanistan or Iraq.
We also operate the ‘dunker’, the underwater escape training unit that all the military helicopter crews must go through. It is a simulated helicopter that drops crew members into the water, turns over and disorientates them in complete darkness. Divers also block off the windows and exits to simulate what might happen after a crash. Crew members then have to escape. Some 7,000 people experience the dunker each year and it is a vital training element.
Sea King operations
At any one time, there are about 40 to 50 people supporting the Sea King modification programme. This includes upgrading some communications on behalf of AgustaWestland. We’re also working with the UK MoD’s Sea King Integrated Project Team (IPT), which manages the Sea King helicopter throughout its service life.
When they want something done to a particular helicopter, such as dealing with a cracked airframe or vibration problem, we get involved. The squadron don’t have the resources to deal with issues such as these.
As part of the modification programme, the aircraft will fly in from the front line, we’ll modify them for AgustaWestland and then prepare them to go back to the squadron for the IPT. From a maintenance and support point of view, the military element of the UK search and rescue service is now managed by AgustaWestland. This includes seven RAF search-and-rescue sites and around 25 aircraft. Each aircraft has to go through strict maintenance every 15 months and AgustaWestland has asked us to look after this important process.
Clearly our experience in this area will be important in supporting our bid to operate the UK’s Search and Rescue helicopter service as part of the UK Air Rescue consortium with AgustaWestland, Bristow and FB Heliservices.
As an organisation, Serco values long-term partnerships and aims to offer flexibility and value. We’re very strong when we’re given a task in which we need to work out exactly how many people we will need and so on. This avoids assumptions being made about the number of people that are required and the way things are usually done. We then think about how we can improve the processes and procedures by being ‘lean’. This means being more efficient by resourcing only what needs to be resourced, and by integrating several processes into one.
We also have the capability to look at the supply chain. The implications of a component being unserviceable can be very costly and spares are always in short supply. The recent stretching of the UK armed forces means extra support is required for the increased number of aircraft in Afghanistan and Iraq, so major components are becomingly increasingly scarce. Our aim is to be as efficient as possible with the spares that are available and get aircraft repaired and ready for the front line as quickly as possible.
International operations
From an operational perspective, there are more elements dispersed across international borders and this can be rather challenging. For example, the Merlin helicopter is a British and Italian aircraft.
The repair for some of the components could therefore be based in Italy, and it can take days for the aircraft to get there and days for it to get back.
We understand the importance of getting an item back into the repair pool, so we can say to AgustaWestland, “Hey, we can do this. We have the people, the knowledge, the understanding, the resources. Let’s get that item into the workshop and we’ll repair it here to save time.”
The first advantage of bringing industry very close to the front line is getting our guys to do the jobs previously reserved for uniformed personnel, which means they are freed up to undertake other critical tasks.
The second is being able to put our knowledge of how the supply chain works to practical use in order to save time and money. That’s how I spend most of my days – looking at how we can innovate to get aircraft through the system quicker. ¶
Personal file
Name: John Barclay
Position: Serco Contract Services
Director, RNAS Yeovilton
Career history: I joined the
Royal Navy in 1981 as an air engineer and stayed with the service for
23 years. By the time I left I was a Military Officer. I joined Serco in 2004 as Contract Services Director and am responsible for our work at the Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton.
Biggest challenge: There is always a challenge to win bids, but the main challenge is to offer a solution to the customer that is innovative and compels them to come back to us. The daily tasks are challenges of course, but it’s really about going that extra mile, to think that we can beat even the customer in knowing what is required.
Defining moment: I was extremely proud to be a part of the team that won the Merlin contract with AgustaWestland, worth £125 million.
Peter Felstead is editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly
