BREMERTON, Wash. –
More than 20 Naval Sustainment System- Shipyards stakeholders gathered in San Diego July 26-28, 2022 to collaborate and brainstorm on Inside Shop Pillar activities, such as work center transformations, improved scheduling accuracy, and developing a core cadence for Production Control Centers. The summit’s primary goal was to develop strategies to get parts and materials from inside shop production facilities back to waterfront projects faster with improved predictably through internal and external scheduling of work.
“Alongside these improvements we will further align and improve the business rules and ensure our AIM [Advanced Industrial Management] chapters include inside shop as well,” said Josh Florez, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility’s Inside Shop Pillar representative. “Aside from the tangible improvements, the alignment and collaboration between the shipyards’ inside shop community was huge.”
Code 900’s Shop 31, Production Resources Inside Machine Shop, management representatives from all four of the U.S. Navy’s public shipyards: Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Virginia; Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Maine; PSNS & IMF, Washington; and Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Hawaii were in attendance. Also included were attendees from PSNS & IMF’s Code 360, Manufacturing and Support Office, Code 200, Engineering and Planning Department, and Code 300, Operations Department.
“This summit was facilitated by Code 100PI with support from our CACI and Boston Consulting Group partners as well,” said Florez. “We were fortunate enough to also have representation from Naval Sea Systems Command to lend the needed support and alignment for an improvement of this scale.”
Key focus areas resulting from the summit include development and use of the PCCs to ensure alignment with local Infrastructure Pillar activities to improve work flow and problem resolution; work center transformation to reduce bottlenecks using Lean tools and processes to remove waste and improve efficiency; and the institution of uniform PCC scheduling practices to provide a short-range-view to support waterfront projects through a clear, coordinated structure.
“This summit was my first experience in participating in a targeted, cross-pillar strategic meeting,” said Dan Arnall, Shop 31 trade superintendent. “The Inside Shop and Waterfront Pillars successfully challenged our corporate principles, behaviors, systems, and tools associated with delivering the result of on-time delivery.”
Arnall also expressed the importance of continued cross-pillar collaboration and open communication to tackle challenges and remove identified barriers as problems are elevated from the workforce. He encourages and looks forward to future summits among the other NSS-SY Pillars.
Going forward, attendees will continue to support Inside Shop Pillar initiatives through material delivery improvements, communication alignment, and continued collaboration with the other pillars’ activities to improve the system as a whole.