BMT has announced it will be engaging with BAE Systems on DSC-West, the Royal Australian Navy’s Anzac class Designer Support Contract. The company’s 2024 acquisition of Australian Maritime Technologies (AMT) is central to the engineering depth it brings to the programme.

AMT was established as part of the original in-country design and build effort for the Anzac class and has maintained a continuous engineering relationship with both the RAN and the Royal New Zealand Navy across design, upgrade and sustainment phases ever since. Its acquisition by BMT brings institutional knowledge stretching from design inception to the present day into the DSC-West team, knowledge that goes beyond what current technical documentation alone can provide.

That continuity matters because the Anzac class is operating well beyond its original service life parameters. Managing configuration, maintaining design baseline integrity and supporting engineering change proposals across a platform of this vintage requires access to design-origin knowledge that current-state records cannot provide. Engineering decisions need to be traced back to original design intent and rationale, not just what is held in end-user documentation today.

BMT sits within DSC-West as a specialist engineering capability, complementing BAE Systems as prime contractor. Together, the team supports the management and evolution of the design and maintenance baselines underpinning safe, seaworthy ships for the RAN, working in close alignment with the System Program Office and the broader class enterprise. BMT organises its defence engineering contribution around three capability areas: ship design, systems assurance and autonomy.

Ship design: three decades of programme continuity

On ship design, BMT brings more than 40 years of continuous Anzac class involvement, from original design authority work through major upgrade programmes to current in-service support. As Australia's largest independent provider of whole-of-platform design and engineering, spanning hull and stability, mechanical, electrical, combat systems and communications, the company offers breadth alongside programme-specific depth. The AMT acquisition deepens Anzac class capability further: continuity of design knowledge of this kind directly reduces integration risk and supports more informed decision-making across sustainment and upgrade activities.

Systems assurance: a live engineering discipline

On systems assurance, BMT's independent engineering perspective carries particular value within a partnership model. Systems assurance in a naval sustainment context encompasses safety case management, certification support and the technical governance underpinning regulatory and operational compliance across the class. As platforms age and accumulate modifications, maintaining coherent assurance across increasingly complex system interactions becomes progressively more demanding.

The company's approach, applied across the surface fleet, is to treat assurance not as a compliance exercise but as a live engineering discipline integrated into programme delivery. In a sustainment environment, the consequences of assurance gaps are operational rather than administrative.

Sovereign capability and the longer horizon

The DSC-West award sits within a period of significant investment in Australian naval engineering capacity. The Commonwealth has committed AUD$54 billion over the next decade to future naval capability, placing considerable pressure on the industrial base to build and retain deep technical expertise across the full naval portfolio, not just for the Anzac class.

BMT's investment in sovereign capability infrastructure, through the AMT acquisition, its Henderson and east coast presence, and programme relationships spanning the full Australian naval portfolio, reflects a deliberate response to those demands. Autonomy represents the longer horizon within that picture: BMT has active capability development underway in this area, including simulation environments for autonomous systems assurance, directly relevant to how the RAN is approaching future capability integration across the surface fleet. For BMT, the Anzac DSC is one part of a sustained, long-term commitment to Australian naval engineering, not a standalone contract award.

That broader commitment also extends through the company’s wider global training offer, helping bridge the education gap for naval architects through courses such as Warships 101 and its Whole Life Warship Capability Management training, which are designed to build technical understanding across the naval architecture community.