The Navy has directed Lockheed Martin [LMT] to fix a number of issues with the Freedom-variant of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the service disclosed Tuesday.
The service put forward three Corrective Action Requests to the company last year and expects to wrap up all remaining action items from the currently open requests by the end of summer, said Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman Dale Eng in a statement.
The first request on inadequate propulsion plant command and control, issued in May 2015, was closed this April after the service’s supervisor of shipbuilding verified during a three-month assessment that Lockheed Martin had solved the problem.
One open request from June 2015 stipulates that Lockheed Martin did not adequately control the cleanliness of critical systems, specifically the propulsion systems aboard the USS Milwaukee (LCS-5) and USS Detroit (LCS-7), which were later found to have “care and protection issues.”
The other request from July 2015 faults Lockheed Martin for “failure to execute proper program oversight and management as required by the contract.”
Eng noted that “the company has been diligently working their plan of action and milestones schedule toward closure.” During the assessment period, the Navy’s supervisor of shipbuilding evaluates the procedures used to fix the issue and verifies that the root cause has been addressed after gathering data over the three-month period.
Lockheed Martin said in a statement that the corrective action requests were a normal part of the shipbuilding process that helps the company optimize its manufacturing procedures.
“Corrective Action Requests do not reflect the final product that is delivered to the Navy. Each of the three ships delivered have met or exceeded Navy specifications for quality and performance prior to acceptance,” the statement said. “We take each Corrective Action Request very seriously as each one identifies manufacturing and training improvements, which our industry team implements, in close coordination with the Navy.”
