The Navy has been working closely with its private shipbuilders to improve quality control standards and processes but cannot simply walk away from an under performing shipyard because the options are much more limited than in the commercial sector, an admiral who oversees a number of the service’s shipbuilding programs said Wednesday.
Rear Adm. David Lewis, the program executive officer for ships at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), said the Navy instead must maintain a “symbiotic” relationship with contractors to develop quality standards, ensure they are followed, and detect problems early in the process. He noted there are far fewer companies building military ships than there are constructing commercial vessels, meaning the Navy cannot afford to see those shipyards close because of quality issues.
“I have an obligation as a Navy shipbuilder to bring those yards along,” he said in interview with Defense Daily. “I can’t just throw them out–let them go bankrupt.”
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| Rear Adm. David Lewis says the Navy is curbing the number of deficiencies on new ships. Photo by Dana Rene, special to Defense Daily. |
“The commercial guys don’t care if a commercial shipyard goes out of business,” he added. “I am not in that situation. I worry about the industrial base.”
Lewis’ comments came a day after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report Tuesday saying NAVSEA, despite launching an initiative several years ago to reverse a downward trend in quality control, was still accepting ships with thousands of deficiencies. The report also recommended the command adopt more commercial practices for quality assurance.
“The Navy pays hundreds of millions and in many cases billions of dollars for ships that warfighters rely on to perform as expected under stressing conditions,” the GAO said. “Yet it routinely accepts ships with numerous uncorrected deficiencies. Addressing these deficiencies after delivery can be costly, time consuming, and disruptive.”
Even as the GAO said the Navy is still accepting ships with overly high deficiency numbers, Lewis said an initiative launched four years ago has begun to curb the problem.
“What I track are the deficiencies before the ship is delivered,” he said. “Those were high numbers before and now they are coming down nicely,” he said.
Lewis said a commercial customer can expect as many as a dozen bidders to submit competitive proposals for a shipbuilding program. The Navy is largely reliant on two major companies, Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] and General Dynamics [GD], who combine to operate five Navy shipyards.
“I am doing my happy dance if I get three,” Lewis said.
Since the Navy launched its “Back to Basics” initiative in 2009 the Navy has made solid progress in reducing deficiencies, particularly on major flaws known as “starred deficiencies,” Lewis said. He said the initiative was needed because about 10-15 years ago private shipyards–and the government to some degree too–scaled back the number quality assurance inspectors to save money. Companies began to rely on workers to inspect their own parts but without sufficient training to properly identify defects or problems, he said.
“Where a lot of companies fail, and I am not just talking shipbuilding but in general, is that they like the part about getting rid of the (quality assurance) department–they save a lot of money that way–then they are sort of a little weak on the workers being properly trained to do their own (quality assurance) part,” Lewis said.
“That’s where we’ve seen a breakdown, is they’re quick to save the money on the (quality assurance) piece and not so good about bringing in the in-process inspection,” he said. That is what the Navy has been trying to change, he added.
Lewis’s shipbuilding programs include destroyers, amphibious warships, and logistical support and sealift vessels. There are separate program offices for aircraft carriers, submarines and the relatively new Littoral Combat Ship that were also subject to the GAO report.
The admiral said the government will pursue targeted inspections when problems are detected, and even with increased numbers of inspectors in recent years, cannot watch every stage of construction for every part and must instead rely on the shipbuilders to effectively enforce quality control.
“I would have trouble justifying 3,000 government guys standing next to 3,000 shipbuilders checking everything they do,” Lewis said, adding the Navy applies statistical based analysis to find and correct problem areas.
NAVSEA employs metrics that establish parameters for upper and lower limits that help determine if quality on a particular component is slipping and then move to resolve the problem.
“As long as you are producing a good product you don’t need to do anything but monitor it, but you do need to know when you deviated from the good product outcome and you need to be able to intervene very quickly–sometimes within a shift–to take corrective action,” he said.