Reasonable estimation of the Maintenance Cost of the ships is one of the important requisites for preparing the fleet Operation and Support (O&S) budget of any Navy. The O&S cost would mainly include the Personnel, Fuel and the Maintenance cost  and normally the yearly maintenance cost of commissioned Naval Ship would consist of the following:

1. Afloat Maintenance Cost – Man-hours of the ship’s crew involved in the Level 1 maintenance activities.
2. Intermediate Maintenance Cost – Man-hours of the Base Maintainers involved in the Level 2  maintenance activities.
3. Workshop and Depot Maintenance cost – Man-hours for the Level 3 maintenance activities, Cost of Docking, Refits, Planned Additions & Alterations, unscheduled maintenance costs etc.
4. Material costs – Cost of spares, consumables etc. including material handling costs.
5. Industrial Service Costs – Cost of optional and mandatory service support availed from industries, including the OEM assistance.
6. Maintenance Training and quality costs.

While the calculation of the maintenance cost based on the historic data for the fleet and organization shall give a more accurate estimation, this is often tedious and time-consuming; especially in cases where the availability of reliable historic data is a question mark. In such situations the alternate solution is to go for a high level estimate using the Life Cycle Cost thumb rules.

According to the thumb rules of Life Cycle Costing the procurement cost of a ship amounts to 40 percentage of the total Life Cycle Cost and the balance 60 percentage amounts for its sustainment and disposal. Further break down of the cost of sustainment shows that the cost of maintenance amounts to 20 to 30% of the procurement cost and it varies with the size and complexity of the ships.

The success of a project is mainly determined by the quality of the human resources. In large organization the selection process of the key project team members normally starts before or during the final stages of a tender closing. More often than not, one of the key positions for which the resource is identified for the Project would be the Project Manager or a Technical Lead for the project. The association of key members during the pre-project phase not only facilitates the smooth transition of the project to the Project Team from the Sales Team but also provides the much-needed continuity in taking forward the project from a technical and management perspective.

Once the Project is confirmed, the selection process of the project team commences on priority to ensure that the required resources are mobilized to kick off the project in accordance with the resource mobilization plan envisaged during the project conceptualization stages. The success of the resource mobilization process greatly depends on the quality of the mobilization and sourcing plan envisaged during the tendering stages and the support extended by the organization to materialize the same.

The roles and quantity of the team members are decided during the tendering stages based on the requirements of the project and this estimated manpower is also used to do the costing and budgeting for the project. The details of the roles shall be elaborated through Job Description documents produced during the initial stages of the recruitment process. The resource mobilization plan may be materialized through a sourcing strategy which leads to the formation of a project team constituted through a combination of existing resources of the organization, new recruitment or sub contractor personnel. The formulation of the sourcing strategy depends up on the availability of suitable internal resources, the time frame available for the recruitment and cost considerations.

All the above mentioned activities lead to the recruitment and mobilization of the Project Team and the key part of the recruitment is the selection of the right candidates. Personnel with the right qualifications and experience are to be shortlisted and thereafter interviewed to verify their capability and suitability for the project. Apart from the qualification and experience, the important factors to be considered while selecting the project team is the attitude and the inter personnel skills of the candidate which plays a major role in the successful integration of the project team. Honesty, reliability, flexibility, discipline and team spirit are few the qualities to be given utmost consideration while selecting a project team member.

The capability of the interviewers to identify the suitable candidates also plays a major role in the selection of the right project team. Therefore the panel of interviewers shall be carefully chosen by the management and the panel shall ideally consist of the management and lead technical representatives of the project, subject matter experts and HR representatives.

One of the most common mistakes which is committed while recruiting the project team members is the selection of over qualified personnel for positions which do not demand  the higher level of qualifications possessed by the candidate. Such candidates once selected and inducted in to the team, find it difficult to integrate in to the project team leading to poor cooperation and communication among the team members. Another mistake of similar proportion is the selection of under qualified candidates which may happen due to nepotism and organizational pressures to select the available internal candidates. It is the duty and responsibility of the management to support the project by eliminating the factors which may lead to such mistakes leading to the selection of the wrong candidates in to the project team.

Choosing the right Project Manager and Project Team is extremely important and the criteria for the selection are much beyond the qualification and experience of the candidates. It is equally important to continuously improve and strengthen the team by organizing an efficient induction plan for the selected team members followed by training programs and team building activities.