Where is defence materiel organisation

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Username Please enter your Username. Password Please enter your Password. Forgot password? Don't have an account? Before the changes, senior foreign commanders, particularly from Britain, used to visit us and marvel at our freedom to cut through red tape, to take decisions rapidly and effectively, and to deliver capability to the frontline. They still visit after the changes, but they don't marvel any more.

The progressive decline in delivery matched the loss of military expertise. Callinan and Gray describe how the DMO treated the symptoms but not the disease. Military experience and expertise is more proactive than administrative, and less inward-looking. It shares the objectivity of the industrial approach but eschews the focus on profit.

Its sole objective is mission success. It's sometimes difficult for someone who has not been involved in military support management to understand how different it is. Here are two examples, which can't be replicated in an office block in Bankstown or Russell.

There are no correct answers to these dilemmas. A "wise" decision could be to shut down the helicopter and search for the cause of the transient vibration.

A "smart" decision could be to wave the pilot off to her rendezvous. A "wise" decision could be to let the scientists do a fatigue test. A "smart" decision could be to do nothing and let the chief's original plan deliver new aircraft. Typically, these dilemmas occur amid a web of military operational, logistics and engineering experience, which is priceless.

They are why the armed forces have engineering and other specialists in uniform. Against this background, one might describe the DMO's role as similar to, say, preventing a landscape gardener from going to Bunnings to buy what he needs. Instead, he is required to define what he needs so that a buying agency can buy it for him. His issue is always: "Are there any gardeners in the buying agency?

Even when leavened with remaining military expertise, the DMO was a worthless impediment to effective military support. We are well rid of it. However, former military expertise is difficult to resurrect. Industrial expertise is counterproductive, its vulnerability masked by contemporary asymmetric warfare. Nevertheless, light is at the end of the tunnel. The Peever review or First Principles Review abolished the DMO and brought its functions back under the control of the service chiefs, who now have the opportunity to slowly rebuild military support expertise.

Of course, they must first recognise and grasp it. As for the government's regrettable procurement "outsourcing" proposal, there are worrying signs that the department is making a mountain out of an earlier molehill, as it seeks to repeat a procurement almost identical to one the military completed successfully about 25 years ago.

George Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. He is writing a book about the application of asset management to defence. Farewell and good riddance, Defence Materiel Organisation.

But industry is no better. Please try again later. The Sydney Morning Herald. By Peter Rusbridge February 25, — 9. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size. Comment: In forgetting the DMO, are we about to become unwise buyers? The Public Sector Informant : latest issue More public service news It is a salutary lesson in governance to discover that two reputable lines of argument can proceed from the same initial premise yet come to very different conclusions.

It's dawn in a Middle Eastern wilderness. An SAS patrol is waiting at the rendezvous for extraction by transport helicopter. At base, the newly operational pilot accepts the aircraft, departs and almost immediately experiences a violent vibration. She lands in the scrub at the end of the airstrip. She knows the mission's importance. She also knows that no replacement aircraft are available.

So do you. She asks for your advice. You and she discuss what to do.