BREMERTON, Wash. –
When a command is as large as Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility, it is sometimes challenging to grasp how each person, shop and code contributes to the mission of maintaining, modernizing and retiring the Navy's fleet; however, every individual at the command has an important piece in meeting that mission.
Command leadership determined the successful strategy of Project and Product Line Management was ready to evolve into Product Delivery. As a result, the Product Delivery Executive Steering Committee has continued identifying, supporting and completing initiatives centered around on-time delivery of naval warships, parts and personnel to the fleet through assigned availabilities, inactivations and reactor compartment disposal.
Development of innovations and efficiencies. Since Project and Product Line Management was established a few years ago, the command has done well developing innovations and efficiencies. It is now time to take the next step: improving overall availability performance.
From development to application. Now that initial efficiencies and innovations have been identified, the command is putting theories into action and innovations into standard practice. Through it all, new efficiencies and innovations will continue to be pinpointed, implemented and fine-tuned.
From piecemeal to integration. The final step is to align all of the tasks so a project is viewed through the lens of an entire system that will ultimately drive on-time delivery of ships, submarines, inactivations and reactor compartment disposals.
The Product Delivery team is working on addressing several issues. For example, workload has increased significantly in recent years, which resulted in necessary increases to the workforce and more mobility within the command. This led to a decrease in experience levels, which can affect delivery schedules. One way to mitigate this is to expand standard work procedures and guidance to help smooth transitions and decrease the learning curve.
Another example is extending the availability execution record of accomplishment on aircraft carriers to submarine availabilities. The command is focusing on the availability endgame. In this, work is ongoing to strengthen communication in order to drive an integrated solution for crew training and system testing. The team is now working toward resolution of those challenges.
In the coming months, the Product Delivery team will continue to focus efforts on integrating everything needed to make work flow.