Designing our future Canadian Surface Combatant

With the design and design team for Canada’s future surface combatant determined and the contracts for this work awarded, design work will now start. The design work is projected to take three to four years to finalize, which means construction will start in the early 2020s, as projected.

The overall objective of the design process is to ensure that the delivered warships meet the Royal Canadian Navy’s needs and to integrate the proposed Canadian content.

A joint design team, with representatives from Irving Shipbuilding and Lockheed Martin Canada, will use a structured design process to modify the existing design and develop the final production-ready design prior to starting construction. This work includes modifying the selected base design to meet Canada’s requirements, and to incorporate Canadian systems and equipment.

This design team will also manage the design work, perform the required systems engineering and develop the integrated data environment necessary to efficiently manage a project of this size and complexity. The design phases include requirements reconciliation, the preliminary design, the functional design and, finally, the creation of the detailed design for the Canadian Surface Combatant ships. At the end of the design process, there will be a complete 3D model of the ship and Irving Shipbuilding will deliver an implementation proposal that will detail the plans and costs for building the ships.

Throughout the design process, the team will focus on getting the design right to ensure the ships will meet the needs of the Royal Canadian Navy today and into the future.

Job creation and economic impact

As per Canada’s policies, Irving Shipbuilding will be required to provide 100% of the contract value in industrial and technological benefits in Canada and will be required to invest 0.5% of the contract value in improvements to the health and viability of the greater Canadian marine industry, as per their commitment under the National Shipbuilding Strategy.

Start of construction

The construction of the first Canadian Surface Combatant will begin only once the design has reached the required level of maturity. It is currently expected that the construction of Canada’s future warships will begin in the early 2020s.