Adelaide ship-builder ASC has picked itself up from a rough year to post a profit of almost $22 million.

The improvement has already been used by the company in its push to secure contracts to build Australia’s next generation of submarines.

Financial year 2013-2014 was a challenging one for ASC, seeing it post a $3.8 million loss. He hurt was later compounded by former defence minister David Johnston says the shipbuilder “couldn't be trusted to build a canoe”.

But ASC says a range of improvements in the Collins Class maintenance program and productivity gains in the Air Warfare Destroyer project have picked up its overall performance.

Interim chief executive officer Stuart Whiley says the company is ready for more work.

“We recognise that continued positive performance in our current submarine operations will place us in the best position for future work,” Mr Whiley said.

“ASC is committed to delivering improved submarine maintenance, availability, reliability and value for money to our customer.”

Revenue was over $1 billion, an improvement of about $100 million.

With France, Germany and Japan vying for the incredible $50 billion future submarine project, ASC is pushing hard for the vessels to be built in Australia.

“ASC stands ready and able to take part in this important national project,” Mr Whiley said.

“Throughout the year ASC has been engaging with each of the three partners to demonstrate our capability and respond to their requests for information to enable them to prepare their respective responses to the Government,” he said.

But the company’s report did state that the submarine project presented some challenges.

Mr Whiley said the company had formed a team of eight engineers and project managers and a probity adviser specifically for the ‘competition evaluation process’ to get the submarine contract.

“To ensure the integrity of the process we engaged a probity adviser and established a probity framework to guide our interaction with each of the three overseas participants and ensure our compliance with the requirements set by the Department of Defence,” Mr Whiley said.

The winner of the Federal Government’s submarine contract should be announced early next year.