Zero Losses, Piloting a New Support Model
Running the logistics side of a Fleet Time Support Period model nobody had tested before, on a front-line warship.
TL;DR
Situation
A front-line warship was chosen to trial "Garage Lite", a new Fleet Time Support Period concept moving Ship's Staff ashore so BAE and a Duty Watch could deliver maintenance faster. No comparable stores-support model had been run before.
Action
Ran the logistics workstream: pre-mustered and labelled stores with a BAE stores coordinator ahead of start, a first for any FTSP, and drove early demand placement.
Result
£145,674 of stores delivered with zero losses on return, and the highest rate of demands placed before T-12 (twelve weeks before the support period starts) of any FTSP on that class of ship that year.
Civilian relevance
Running the logistics side of a model with no precedent to follow, and building the accountability that a first-of-its-kind trial doesn't come with by default.
The Challenge
"Garage Lite" was a new way of delivering a Fleet Time Support Period (FTSP): instead of Ship's Staff remaining aboard throughout, they would move ashore so that BAE Systems' Whole Fleet Support Partner team and a Duty Watch could deliver maintenance faster, with the aim of returning the ship to Availability sooner. A front-line warship was the platform chosen to trial it, over five weeks from 28 June to 30 July 2021.
Nobody had run the stores and logistics side of an FTSP this way before. With Ship's Staff off the platform for most of the trial, the usual people who track, sign for, and account for stores were not there to do it, and there was no existing model to follow for how the supply chain should operate under those conditions.
The Core Problem
Removing Ship's Staff removes the people who normally hold the accountability for what a platform's stores account contains. A trial built to prove a faster maintenance model still needed someone to make sure that speed did not come at the cost of losing track of what moved, where it went, and whether it came back.
Context & Stakes
This Garage Lite trial sat inside a wider Captain Engineering-sponsored assessment of whether the model could reliably deliver more maintenance in less time across the fleet. The trial succeeded on that measure: the Whole Fleet Support Partner team completed 1,125 tasks against the work package, compared with 677 on a comparable full-length FTSP.
None of that activity removes the logistics risk. Defence's stores accounting system remained live afloat throughout the trial with no ashore workaround, meaning the maintenance-period support group had to run live supply chain administration for a ship without the usual on-ship presence supporting it. Every item moved, permanent or loan, still had to be tracked and returned, and the trial's own after-action review flagged stores accountability and the return of material to the supply chain as genuinely difficult problems to solve under the new model.
Approach
Pre-Mustering Stores Before the Trial Started
Working with a BAE stores coordinator, I had stores mustered and labelled ahead of the FTSP's start date, so they were kitted and ready on the jetty from day one rather than being tracked down once the trial was already under way. The trial's own after-action review noted this had not happened on any previous FTSP.
Streamlining the Handover to BAE
I set up a direct, streamlined process for calling permanent and limited stores forward and handing them to the BAE Principal Material Controller, with a single point of contact on the BAE side coordinating receipt. That single-POC arrangement did not exist on other FTSPs running at the same time.
Driving Early Demand Placement
I pushed demand submission earlier than the trial required, reaching 89% of demands placed before T-12 (the point twelve weeks before the support period starts by which demands should be placed to meet the milestones), the highest proportion recorded on any FTSP on that class of ship that year, ahead of this platform's own two prior FTSPs and every other same-class ship's FTSP run that year.
Running It Alongside Eight Other Units
The trial's logistics support ran to roughly 160 hours over five weeks, about two hours a day, which was 31% of my working time; the remaining 69% went to FTSP preparation for eight other ships of the same class running concurrently.
Outcomes
- Zero Losses on Return – 100% of permanent and loan items were returned to the supply chain, with no losses, under a model that removed the Ship's Staff who would normally hold that accountability
- Best Early-Demand Rate of Any FTSP on That Class of Ship That Year – 89% of demands placed before T-12 (twelve weeks before the support period starts), ahead of this platform's own prior FTSPs and every other same-class ship compared in the trial's after-action review
- £145,674 of Stores Delivered – 97 demands covering 517 line items delivered across the five-week trial
- A First-of-Its-Kind Process Adopted Into the Model – pre-mustering stores with a named BAE coordinator ahead of FTSP start, something no previous FTSP had done, and recorded as a positive finding in the trial's own review
- Logistics Credited in the Formal Report – the Captain Engineering's post-delivery report named the logistics activity specifically as one of the trial's demonstrated advantages
Proving It Under Conditions With No Precedent
A trial like this has no existing playbook to copy, so the questions have to be answered from first principles: who signs for what, when to ask for it, and how to know it came back. Getting all three right on the first attempt, without a template, is what the zero-loss result actually demonstrates.
Lessons Learned
A Zero-Precedent Trial Needs Someone to Own the Accountability Gap
Removing Ship's Staff removed the default owners of stores accountability. Nobody had assigned that gap to a specific role before the trial started; closing it required deciding, without instruction, who would hold it, and then proving the answer worked.
Early Action Buys Room for Everything Else to Go Wrong
Placing demands well ahead of T-12 did not prevent every problem, but it meant the problems that did surface had time to be resolved before they threatened delivery. The 89% figure was a planning choice, not a lucky outcome.
Not Every Problem Gets Solved the First Time
The trial's own review was honest about what remained unresolved: 29 lines, 132 items, were still sitting in the maintenance-period support group's warehouse at the end because they had not been called forward, and managing stores returns without a firm single point of contact remained a genuine weak point. A pilot that surfaces its own remaining problems clearly is more useful than one that quietly hides them.
What Worked Gets Copied
The pre-mustering arrangement with a named BAE coordinator was specific to this trial when it started. By the time the after-action review was written, it was already being recommended as standard practice for future platforms running the same model.
Civilian Relevance
Running a supply chain workstream for an operating model with no precedent, building the accountability controls it doesn't come with by default, and proving the approach with a verifiable result rather than a plan: the same discipline a supply chain or operations lead applies whenever the business changes how it works faster than its controls have caught up.
Trial figures and outcomes drawn from official appraisal records and correspondence are described here in general terms only; no internal documents, other individuals, or classified detail are reproduced.
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