NAVSEA field activities innovations contribute to on-time delivery of ships, submarines

Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) number-one mission priority is returning ships and submarines to the operational fleet on time following major maintenance availabilities.

From re-juggling contracting procedures to rearranging shipyard workflows, NAVSEA continues to find, fund and implement ideas that increase efficiencies and break down roadblocks that stand between ships and their respective return to service.

NAVSEA Commander, Vice Adm. Tom Moore, has seen some big ticket ideas to support this mission, but is realistic about the path ahead.

“I'll take billion-dollar ideas,” said Moore, “But most of those have already been wrung out, which means we're going to get there by finding lots of small savings day-in and day-out.”

In fiscal year (FY) 2017, efficiency initiatives across the NAVSEA enterprise reflected a culture of review and improvement, with field activities finding innovative solutions that have helped meet the continual need from the Navy’s operational fleet to have its ships ready to train and deploy.

NNSY
At Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY), a key initiative came from the nuclear electrical/electronics group. It teamed with the shipyard’s performance improvement office in a Lean Six Sigma-style rapid improvement event to create more efficient tool storage and accountability practices.

Under the previous system, workers would often have to gather materials from various areas of the shipyard. That required extra time and effort, risking delays in completing work. The new procedures resulted in a consolidated tool room that centrally maintains the shop's specialized tools and material.

“We were able to secure available cabinets, lockers and toolboxes from across the shipyard and bring them into the new space,” said William Divers, nuclear electronics mechanic supervisor. “We laid out the room with plenty of space for the existing tools we have, as well as space to utilize in the future with new tools.”

“With this new process and this new storage area, we not only help our workers stay centralized in the building, but we also gain that accountability from our people,” said Benjamin Kreps, the initiative’s ’“Green Belt” efficiency lead. “We want to know where the tools are and what they're being used for. We also want to know what tools are still in working order and what tools are in need of replacement. With this event, we were able to address the needs of the shop and provide efficiency to our workers.”

Divers said the next step is to bring radio-frequency identification technology into the tool storage room and working with other naval shipyards to learn what processes are currently in practice. “This project was a first step for us in ensuring an efficient workplace for the electrical/electronics group,” he said.
“We're looking forward to what our next step will be.”

SUPSHIP Groton
At Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion and Repair (SUPSHIP) Newport News, cost reporting practices offered an efficiency opportunity. By shifting from a monthly to a weekly analysis of budget expenditures, the SUPSHIP/Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) team was able to better assess work progress and helped the command enable the delivery of two aircraft carriers back to the fleet on time.

“With the pace of planning and execution of in-service availabilities, monthly cost reports lag too much to be effective in focusing oversight,” said Dave Anthony, SUPSHIP Newport News in-service aircraft carriers project supervisor. “Because of budget challenges during the inactivation planning for ex-Enterprise (CVN 65) in 2010, we began working with HII to instead assign yearly budgets for each job, establish a management reserve to address contingencies and reinvest any residual funding into jobs experiencing difficulties. We found that this allowed us to do more work than originally projected.”

SUPSHIP Newport News and HII implemented the same approach on the planned incremental availabilities (PIA) for USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) and USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), as well as for the controlled industrial availability for USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72).

“This weekly visibility not only optimized funds management, but it also allowed us to better assess progress trends and focus oversight on problem areas,” said Anthony “This team effort helped to keep everyone aligned, and ultimately helped us to complete the HII-NNS work on schedule for CVN 77 and deliver CVN 75 and CVN 72 back to the fleet on time.”

SUBMEPP
In Kittery, Maine, the Submarine Maintenance Engineering, Planning and Procurement (SUBMEPP) office developed a new strategy to deal with failing bearings in Virginia-class submarines’ torpedo tube rotary shutter doors.

In 2010, pre-availability testing on USS Virginia (SSN 774) during the submarine’s first scheduled depot maintenance period revealed that both the forward and aft torpedo tube shutter door bearings, which allow smooth and quiet operation of the doors, had failed. The short-term solution required replacement of these bearings at every major dry-docking availability.

Thanks to a team of experts from NAVSEA’s Naval Systems Engineering Directorate (SEA 05), the Virginia-class submarine program office (PMS-450), Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport Division, the Naval Research Laboratory and General Dynamics Electric Boat, this replacement is no longer required.

The team’s long-term solution: new, non-metallic bearings intended to last for the entire service life of the submarine. These efforts yielded a significant cost savings and reduced the amount of time required for one area of Virginia-class submarines maintenance periods. These bearings have now been shock-tested, life-cycle-tested and are scheduled for installation on all new-construction Virginia-class submarines, beginning with the future USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN 795); and back-fitted onto existing in-service submarines during subsequent availabilities.

NUWC Newport
In another submarine example, members of Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Keyport Division’s Pacific detachment directly helped ensure a Hawaii-based submarine met its availability milestones on time. In September 2017 a defective submarine part threatened to compromise a certification required for the submarine’s fast cruise. Standard procedure called for removal and replacement of the part, a delay the already tight schedule couldn’t afford. The team developed a strategy to make repair while the part remained in-place, meeting the deadline and completing the certification.

NAVSEA Warfare Centers
Efficiency initiatives at the shipyards are not limited to these types of local, micro-innovations, but are evident at the macro level as well. The technical expertise resident at NAVSEA’s warfare centers has taken a look at potential ideas for efficiency with its Warfare Center Innovation Support for Naval Shipyards initiative, an initiative that aims to better understand shipyard functions and apply the warfare centers' technical capabilities to improve maintenance processes and human performance.

Representatives from all 10 warfare center divisions and four naval shipyards comprise the NAVSEA Command Technology Team (CTT). The team visits each shipyard, focusing on critical-path work—typically high-visibility, high-risk, time-consuming and expensive—and explores possible improvements.

The team’s major focus areas include planning and preparation, shipboard and off-hull industrial processes, industrial support and system fixes, and problem prevention. The initiative also focuses on development of accelerated learning systems targeted at improving readiness and training of shipyard workforces.

To date, the initiative has generated more than 150 ideas and resulted in more than a dozen completed projects.

While Moore anticipates continued budget pressures and fleet demands, he has a high level of confidence in the ability of the NAVSEA workforce to continue seek—and find—more efficient ways to accomplish NAVSEA’s number one mission.

“We've had a good year with many successes including delivering all four CVNs out of their availabilities ON TIME,” Moore wrote to the NAVSEA workforce in a September All Hands email, “but there remains work to do.”