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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
The four companies that made up the Australian Submarine Corporation consortium brought complementary skills to the new submarine project. They also brought conflicting cultures and attitudes. In the early days of the project the complementary skills proved invaluable, but within a short time conflicts began and by 1989 the consortium began to fall apart.
The fundamental clash was between Kockums and Chicago Bridge & Iron, with Wormald playing the role of peacemaker and AIDC being a bemused and silent onlooker. While there is general agreement at Kockums that CBI played a vital role in the early years of the project, the two companies approached the project with a starkly different attitude. Kockums from the start was looking at developing a long-term relationship with the Australian navy such as it had with the Swedish navy. CBI as a large engineering contractor was used to setting up a project, completing it quickly and efficiently and moving on. Ross Milton illustrated the clash with the companies' differing approaches to problem solving:
The Americans – their problem solving technique could be characterised as coming at the problem with a baseball bat, they confront problems. On the other hand the Swedes don't do that – they try to surround a problem and love it to death. If you look at those extremes it almost creates national incompatibilities.
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