Assuming it
comes to fruition – not a safe assumption with the Navy - , here’s some genuine
good news about our four publicly owned naval shipyards. You’ll recall that our shipyards have lost
the capability to build ships and are in, literally, crumbling condition (see,
“Government Run Shipyards”).
Now,
NavSea, prodded by Congress, has produced a plan to rebuild the shipyards. (1,
2) The 20 year plan (right there is
reason for skepticism since no 20 plan is ever carried to fruition) proposed
spending $21B to revitalize the yards, concentrating on three main aspects.
- Dry Dock recapitalization - As
the Executive Summary of NavSea’s plan notes, drydock investment is needed
in order to service the Ford and Virginia class vessels.
- Facility layout and
optimization - Facility layout at the yards needs extensive
modification. NavSea plans to
resize, reconfigure, and relocate facilities to optimize work flow.
- Capital equipment modernization
- NavSea plans to reinvest in capital equipment that is beyond its service
life, obsolete, and no longer supported by the original manufacturer.
This is
good news on its own but even better is that the Navy seems to have a logical
approach to the project.
“We’re not going to get $21 billion
in one year to go do this, nor could we execute that amount of money, so …
we’ll go do that work in a way that allows us to get the most important work
done as quickly as we can to get the biggest return on investment to the
taxpayer, and then also takes into account work that’s ongoing in the yard.”
The Navy is currently in the process
of working with a civil engineering firm to draw out what the final end state
will look like at each of the four public shipyards, and will then determine
how to plan the work around one-year budget cycles, Naval Sea Systems Command
commander Vice Adm. Tom Moore told USNI News. (1)
While I
noted at the outset that the length of the plan, 20 years, is cause enough to
be skeptical about its success, the Navy even seems to be aware of this aspect!
“That’s going to be the challenge,
for sure, is to keep people interested over a 20-year period. For anything
that’s a challenge. I think the selling point to everybody has been … if you
want to get to a force of 355 (ships) and you want to be more productive going
forward, this is a key component of it,” Moore
The Navy
has correctly identified the monumentally obvious connection between fleet size
and shipyard maintenance facilities!
 |
| Portsmouth Shipyard |
Another worrisome aspect of this project is the Navy’s well known, well demonstrated
fixation on advanced technology at the expense of actual usefulness. In the article, Moore
Technology
fixation aside, NavSea’s plan is a good one and the Navy seems to have a solid
grasp on how to execute it. If the
funding can be maintained, $1B each year ought to yield substantial
improvements to the yards and, ultimately, to the state of the fleet. ComNavOps gives this project his wholehearted
approval and support.
While I’m
highly critical of Navy leadership for allowing the shipyards to deteriorate to
the horrific point they have, I’ll give the Navy full credit for finally
recognizing the problem and doing something meaningful about it. I also have to give Congress full credit for
their oversight and prodding without which the project would likely not
exist. This is what Congress is supposed
to do – well done!
I’ll
attempt to revisit this from time to time and track the progress.
The
Executive Summary of NavSea’s plan is available on-line (2).
___________________________________
(1)USNI
News, “NAVSEA Looking for Early Wins as it Kicks Off 20-Year Yard
Modernization”, Megan Eckstein, 5-Sep-2018 ,
Actually, the approach to technology makes sense to me, especially below. They aren't talking about going out on the bleeding edge. They are talking about incorporating proven technologies to make the work flow much more efficient--exactly the sort of thing that the military should be adopting from private industry where it makes sense.
ReplyDelete"Additionally, Moore noted that Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia has had success inputting digital ship product models into steel-cutting machines that can then cut very precisely. The machines can also etch into the steel where studs would go, instead of sending a worker out with a ruler and chalk to mark out as many as a thousand spots for studs – which leads to a good chance of mistakes being made and re-work being required. Moore said the Navy was very interested in bringing this technology and process to its public repair yards.
“As we move to electronic work documents, we’re going to be looking at how do we incorporate more Wi-Fi. We certainly have to take into account cybersecurity, but there is no doubt that we need to get to a place where we could get away from paper; get down on the deck plate with some tablet that would allow the worker to look at the work document right there, actually hold it up and it would give him where he’s got to work. It would tell him the bill of material – if he starts to work and a material is missing, what we’d like to do is eventually get to the point where he could get on his tablet, hit a button that says hey I need this material and have it delivered to the ship so he didn’t have to leave the worksite. Some sort of FaceTime technology where he could perhaps get an engineer up in one of the shops that says hey I’m down on the ship right now, here’s what I’m seeing, can you give me an engineering recommendation? Where today you’ve either got to call the engineer down, or you’ve got to take some pictures and go back up to the engineering shop. So you could certainly envision a day where the technology we’re going to put in there would allow us to more real-time do work on the deck plate and not have to stop work,” Moore said.
“Is there a way to use drones? You can’t get the drone on the ship, but is there a way for us to move material throughout the yard more efficiently than we’re doing today? We’re looking at all of that. We’re going to learn a lot from not only the big yards that are building stuff; I want to look worldwide at the private sector, other shipbuilding throughout the world to see what technologies they may be using that would improve our ability to make the right investments as we go forward.”
That was exactly my point. If they can restrain themselves and stick to existing technology they'll be fine. On the other hand, if they attempt to implement an F-35 ALIS-like, all-encompassing, inventory, control, planning software then it will fail just like the F-35's software. Unfortunately, the Navy's history is one of choosing to leap past the existing right into fantasy. We'll see if they can restrain themselves.
Delete“That’s going to be the challenge, for sure, is to keep people interested over a 20-year period."
ReplyDeleteTake an "up or out" admiral who is an out, offer him an in, if he accepts a 10 year term as head of the shipyard
Job done
This is certainly good news, but there's a phrase that worries me:
ReplyDelete"NavSea plans to resize, reconfigure, and relocate facilities to optimize work flow."
In the software industry, where I work, and which seems to be one of the Navy's general models, this kind of phrasing often implies a working environment that's dedicated to the way a process works now, and has to be re-worked whenever a process changes.
In theory, that's easy for software, although it often ends up being complicated. When a workflow is built out of welding shops, cranes, and so on, re-arranging it is both time-consuming and expensive.
"dedicated to the way a process works now, and has to be re-worked whenever a process changes."
DeleteTrue but on the plus side the basic process of ship repair doesn't really change all that much. If you think about it, basic ship repair hasn't fundamentally changed since the steamship! Sure, some of technology has improved but the fundamental maintenance and repair process flow hasn't really.
The process "optimisations" common in software tend to be much too specific.
DeleteThe kind of situation I'm thinking of is where there's just enough space to move an assembled LM2500 gas turbine rotor between two machines in the shipyard's turbine shop. Then the Navy adopts a new model of turbine, where the rotor is larger, and has to uproot a huge and expensive machine, build a new foundation for it and re-install it three feet to the left.
This kind of rework happens all the time in software, and "work flow" is a term that tends to be very common in software that has no flexibility, but has been sold as "Perfect for your business needs!"
A 20 year plan is a good ideal. Being suspicious of it is a well seems reasonable. the Congress is generally not that good a implementing a long term plan. Navy ship yards are hardly the only infrastructure that is crumbling in the US. We seem rather good at budgeting to build a new thing whatever that might be but nobody really gets exited allocating money forward into some sort of upgrade repair budget. If they pull it off there will lots of jealous scientists at NASA, USDA, NIH, etc. who kill for that kind budget stability.
ReplyDeleteI've pondered the lack of yards and retirement/abandonment of old yards quite a bit. The only thing that gives me any hope is the oilfield yards in the Gulf that I suspect could be steered to war duty in a blink of an eye. They may not be used to building warships, but they are very experienced in building highly technical and large equipment such as drill platforms. I have no doubt that they could get the job done, and probably with less BS than the "real" yards.
ReplyDeleteIf your thinking real war there is some capacity in California as well for large tankers and stuff for Alaska because it has to be built domestically.
Delete