[Senate Hearing 116-645]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 116-645
UNITED STATES NAVY SHIP AND SUBMARINE MAINTENANCE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
SEAPOWER
AND
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 4, 2019
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-889 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi JACK REED, Rhode Island
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
TOM COTTON, Arkansas KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
JONI ERNST, Iowa MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina TIM KAINE, Virginia
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
RICK SCOTT, Florida JOE MANCHIN, West Virginia
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri DOUG JONES, Alabama
John Bonsell, Staff Director
Elizabeth L. King, Minority Staff Director
__________
Seapower
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia, Chairman
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
TOM COTTON, Arkansas JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
JONI ERNST, Iowa RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine
Readiness and Management Support
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska, Chairman
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska TIM KAINE, Virginia
JONI ERNST, Iowa JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee DOUG JONES, Alabama
C O N T E N T S
__________
December 4, 2019
Page
United States Navy Ship and Submarine Maintenance................ 1
Members Statements
Statement of Senator David Perdue................................ 1
Statement of Senator Mazie K. Hirono............................. 3
Statement of Senator Tim Kaine................................... 4
Statement of Senator Dan Sullivan................................ 51
Witness Statements
Geurts, The Honorable James F., Assistant Secretary of the Navy 5
for Research, Development, and Acquisition; Accompanied by Vice
Admiral Thomas J. Moore, USN, Commander, Naval Sea Systems
Command.
Maurer, Diana C., Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, 13
U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Questions for the Record......................................... 77
(iii)
UNITED STATES NAVY SHIP AND SUBMARINE MAINTENANCE
----------
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2019
United States Senate,
Joint Subcommittee on Seapower and
Subcommittee on Readiness
and Management Support,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m. in
room SD-106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator David
Perdue (presiding).
Members present: Senators Perdue, Fischer, Ernst, Sullivan,
McSally, Hawley, Hirono, Shaheen, Blumenthal, Kaine, King, and
Jones.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAVID PERDUE
Senator Perdue. Good morning. The Joint Armed Services
Subcommittees on Seapower and Readiness and Management Support
convene this morning to examine Navy ship and submarine
maintenance.
We want to welcome our three distinguished witnesses today:
The Honorable James F. Geurts, Assistant Secretary of the Navy
for Research, Development, and Acquisition--good morning; Vice
Admiral Thomas Moore, Commander of Naval Sea Systems Command--
good morning, sir; and Ms. Diana Maurer, Director of Defense
Capabilities and Management at the Government Accountability
Office (GAO)--I understand this is your first time testifying,
so we'll try to be gentle; thank you very much for being here.
I want to thank Chairman Sullivan and Ranking Members
Hirono and Kaine for agreeing to hold this hearing jointly. I
think it makes it much more efficient.
The operating and support costs that come after a weapon
system is produced can account for some 70 percent or more of
the total ownership cost of the lifetime of a major asset. I
think it's very important for our Subcommittees to work closely
on sustainment issues, like ship and submarine maintenance,
together.
In September, I visited Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard with
Ranking Member Hirono. She's been after me for the last 2 years
about this. This is a major issue with her, and she's exactly
right, not just for that shipyard, but for all shipyards. I
want to thank Hirono for that invitation. I walked away with a
better appreciation of many challenges facing our naval
shipyards, and ship maintenance more broadly.
As I've dug into this a little bit deeper, I've personally
got concerns, many of which are highlighted in our witnesses'
testimony, today, which I look forward to discussing.
Overall, maintenance delays continue to be a significant
issue, as the GAO notes, totaling more than 33,000 days across
fiscal years 2014 through 2019, for aircraft carriers, surface
ships, and submarines. One effect of these delays is fewer
ready ships, which places a greater stress on our fleet to meet
all of its operational demands. For example, according to Ms.
Maurer's testimony: in fiscal year 2019, maintenance delays
alone resulted in the Navy losing the equivalent of 19 service
ships. Of our 292-ship fleet, 19 were not available to
commanders.
The ship depot maintenance account also appears to be
chronically underfunded, with large reprogrammings needed each
year. In fiscal year 2019, the budget was $9.8 billion. By the
middle of the year, the Navy announced shortfall of nearly $1
billion. However, less than $300 million was available to
address this shortfall, which led to a deferral of nearly $700
million in maintenance that continue--that, combined with the
$814 million of the Chief of Naval Operation's (CNO) unfunded
priority list, resulting in well over a billion dollars of
unfunded maintenance in the current fiscal year, in 2019. To my
earlier point on schedule delays, even if the Navy had this
money, the Navy doesn't seem to have the shipyard capacity
readily available to handle this incremental work.
These are challenges the Navy is facing today with a fleet
of 292 ships. By the end of the fiscal year, the Navy will
have, hopefully, 301 ships. The fleet is growing, but it's far
from clear that we can maintain the fleet we have, much less
the fleet of 301 ships, and let alone a future fleet of 355
ships.
It's important to recognize that we did not get into this
situation overnight, and correcting this underlying issue will
require a long-term commitment. As highlighted in the
witnesses' statements, a number of systemic factors need to be
addressed, including accepting ships with serious deficiencies,
ship deployments extended beyond planned durations, poor
facility and equipment conditions, cumbersome contracts, a
green workforce, and an insufficient drydock capacity.
Secretary Geurts, the Committee recognized the importance
of improving accountability for maintenance outcomes and gave
your position the additional principal duty of sustainment,
including maintenance, in last year's NDAA. We're looking to
you for leadership and follow through to restore the balance
between fleet size and its sustainment.
There are four specific areas that I look forward to
discussing today, in partnering with the Navy:
First, what size Navy can we predictability maintain, now
and in the future? How do we increase that ability as we
increase the size of the fleet?
Second, the implementation of the Navy's $21 billion, 20-
year Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan, or SIOP, it is
clear to me that Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard needs to be
brought to the 21st Century. Is the SIOP the right plan and its
implementation being effectively carried out?
Third, private shipyard capacity and the ability of these
shipyards to meet the forecasted future surface ship
maintenance workload.
Fourth, the extent to which continuing resolutions and
budget stability affect the ability to plan and execute
maintenance.
In conclusion, in this era of great-power competition,
there's no question that our Navy needs to grow larger and
become more capable. My fear is that, as the Navy grows,
maintenance capacity will not keep pace. The end result will be
a larger fleet, but fewer ships ready for operational tasking.
I look forward to our witnesses' testimony today and thank
them again for their attendance.
In order for opening remarks--the order for opening remarks
will be Ranking Member Hirono, Chairman Sullivan, when he gets
back from his Judiciary responsibility of introducing a
nominee, and then Ranking Member Kaine, and then our witnesses.
I understand Secretary Geurts will give one opening
statement on behalf of himself and Admiral Moore. Is that
correct?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir.
Senator Perdue. Thank you.
With that, we'll get started, and I recognize Ranking
Member, Senator Hirono.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR MAZIE K. HIRONO
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your very
complete opening statement. I thank you and Chair Sullivan for
holding this hearing.
Of course, I want to thank all of the witnesses joining us
today. We certainly appreciate the time that you took to
prepare for today's hearing, and also for the work that you all
do every day for our country.
I'll keep my remarks brief so we can get on with the
hearing.
Last year at about this time, we held a similar joint
hearing to discuss Navy and Marine Corps readiness. Many of the
same challenges we talked about then remain before us today.
Senator Perdue and I have worked together in the Seapower
Subcommittee to ensure the Navy has the resources it needs to
build a larger, more capable fleet of ships and submarines.
But, as noted by the Chair's opening statement, we have a ways
to go. We all know that these platforms require necessary
timely maintenance to keep them operational. It's not enough to
build new ships, of course. We need to invest in their
maintenance and modernization to keep them afloat.
I'm particularly concerned about shipyard modernization and
how the Navy intends to implement its Shipyard Optimization
Plan. This plan requires focused attention as well as
sufficient and stable resources. In Hawaii, we are all proud of
the contribution Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard makes to our
fleet's readiness, and I want to be sure that the yard receives
the resources it needs to keep our fleet in fighting shape.
In addition to modernizing our shipyards, I'd also like the
witnesses to address how we would--we should improve the
timeliness of ship availabilities. Once ships reach the yard,
fewer than 40 percent of them are completing their maintenance
availabilities on time. Fewer than 40 percent. That means that
the majority of those ships do not come out of maintenance in a
timely manner. I know that it is--this is not the fault of the
workers that we have at our shipyards. There are other issues
that we need to address to enable them to do their work. We
need to do better for the sailors who operate these ships, for
the combatant commanders who rely on their capabilities, and
for the taxpayers who expect wise use of their dollars.
Again, I thank you for being here this morning.
Senator Perdue. Thank you, Senator Hirono.
With that, Senator Sullivan and Senator Kaine will be here
momentarily. I think----
Senator Kaine. I'm ready.
Senator Perdue. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was looking the
wrong direction. Good morning.
Senator Kaine. Good to be with you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Perdue. I'll recognize our Ranking Member from the
Readiness Subcommittee, Senator Kaine.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR TIM KAINE
Senator Kaine. Great. Thanks so much.
Welcome, to the witnesses.
I want to thank the Chairman, Senator Sullivan and Senator
Perdue and Senator Hirono. It's good to have this hearing. It's
good to have it as a joint hearing between the two
Subcommittees.
I had an opening statement, but it's far less powerful,
actually, than the first paragraph of Ms. Maurer's prepared
testimony, so I'm just going to read this into the record and
make a couple of other comments.
The testimony that she has given to us, ``What GAO Found.
The Navy continues to face persistent and substantial
maintenance delays that affect the majority of its maintenance
efforts and hinder its attempts to restore readiness. From
fiscal year 2014 to the end of fiscal year 2019, Navy ships
have spent over 33,700 more days in maintenance than expected.
The Navy was unable to complete scheduled ship maintenance on
time for about 75 percent of the maintenance periods conducted
during fiscal years 2014 through 2019, with more than half of
the delays in fiscal year 2019 exceeding 90 days. When
maintenance is not completed on time, fewer ships are available
for training or operations, which can hinder readiness.''
That's the reason that we're having the hearing today. That
set of statistics paints a stark picture about how we make
improvements to improve readiness.
We have a series of challenges that we're going to grapple
with in the hearing today. Let me just put two first.
Infrastructure. I support the Navy Shipyard Optimization
Plan, and I want to thank, Ms. Maurer, and your team, because
you recently completed a review of naval shipyards, I guess,
last week, and you're going to highlight what actions remain
for improvement. This is a long-term issue. One of the
questions I hope that we'll address today is, how do you fund
the Shipyard Optimization Plan in any reasonable timeframe? The
estimated cost is $20 billion over 20 years. How can the Navy
possibly get there in time with a--with measurable impacts in
the improvement of readiness? That is, when that $20 billion is
spent at the same time as you're doing all kinds of other
things--modernization, focusing on workforce, et cetera. So,
that's the infrastructure challenge, writ large.
There's a particular infrastructure issue that is important
in Virginia, but really elsewhere, and that deals with climate
change in extreme weather. Hurricanes and flooding continue to
wreak havoc on military installations along the eastern coast
and elsewhere, costing taxpayers several billion dollars in
reconstruction and repair. In Virginia, it's hurricanes and
flooding; but in other military installations, it's drought,
it's extreme heat, it's wildfires. We're seeing this all over
the country. The GAO has previously found what many of us
already know about our military installations. A quote from the
GAO, ``The potential impacts of weather effects associated with
climate change pose operational and budgetary risk.'' I note
that the fiscal year 2020 budget request includes, for the
first time, drydock flood protection improvements for Norfolk
Naval Shipyard. Our military is being--trying to be proactive
in making these resilience investment proposals. I appreciate
that.
We all want to make sure that the Navy gets to the highest
level of readiness. We're not going to be able to do it
overnight, but this hearing will help us identify how we can
improve. We look forward to your testimony.
Senator Perdue. Thank you.
With that, we'll move to our witnesses' testimony. We'll
start with Secretary Geurts.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JAMES F. GEURTS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF THE NAVY FOR RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ACQUISITION;
ACCOMPANIED BY VICE ADMIRAL THOMAS J. MOORE, USN, COMMANDER,
NAVAL SEA SYSTEMS COMMAND
Secretary Geurts. Thank you. Chairman Perdue, Chairman
Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, Ranking Member Kaine,
distinguished members of the two Subcommittees, thank you for
the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the
Department of the Navy's ship and submarine maintenance.
I'm joined today by Vice Admiral Tom Moore, Commander of
Naval Sea Systems Command.
With your permission, I intend to do one brief opening
remark for the two of us.
Admiral Moore. Yes, sir
Secretary Geurts. U.S. naval forces continue to be in high
demand in an ever-changing and complex geopolitical landscape.
Across the globe, our strategic competitors attempt to
influence, disrupt, and undermine regional stability and free
access to the seas. Properly maintained, equipped, and manned
ships are critical in ensuring the Navy is ready to respond
when called.
Today, we're here to discuss one critical aspect of
readiness. That's how do we properly maintain and sustain our
ships and submarines? Since 2017, with the strong support of
Congress, the Navy's made steady progress in our ability to
properly and effectively carry out the required maintenance to
ensure our sailors have the most capable and effective
operational platforms available. Although we've made steady
progress, there's still much more to be done. We continue to
work across the entire maintenance enterprise, both the public
and private sectors, to develop and deliver a comprehensive
approach focused on delivering ships and submarines out of
maintenance, on time and in full. We've done this by
implementing measures that are focused on better planning,
better materiel management, increased capacity, better
workforce training, and investments in our facilities. As a
result, since 2017 we're seeing positive indications that the
maintenance initiatives are making a difference. For instance,
the on-time maintenance completions of our DDG-51-class
destroyers have improved from 29 percent in fiscal year 2018 to
43 percent in fiscal year 2019, and we're projecting 71 percent
on-time in fiscal year 2020. Similarly, the average days of
maintenance delays in our public sector submarine
availabilities have improved from 176 delays in fiscal year
2017 to 23 days in fiscal year 2019, and we've reduced the
workload carryover by 58 percent since fiscal year 2017.
Although the vectors are moving in the right direction, the
biggest threat to achieving the necessary sustained performance
is budget instability. In 2019, Congress provided the Navy an
authorization and an appropriation that was on time for the
first time in 10 years. I cannot overemphasize the importance
and the positive impact that had on our ability to maintain our
maintenance plans as we have them planned.
This year, although we're well into the first quarter of
fiscal year 2020, we're on our second continuing resolution.
From a ship maintenance standpoint, this has already negatively
impacted our planning and contracting for ship maintenance. Our
plan--our ship maintenance plan is only as good as the
resources that back it up. A full-year continuing resolution
(CR) would be a devastating blow to ship maintenance. It would
reverse all the gains we've made over the last 2 years and
create another huge maintenance backlog that would take years
to reduce.
Although we've made gains since 2017, significant and
steady investments over a long period of time will be required
to recapitalize the public shipyards, incentivize the private-
sector shipyards to increase their capacity and capabilities,
and ensure a workforce is available to adequately meet our
ultimate goal, delivering every ship and submarine from
maintenance, on time and in full, as we expend the fleet to 355
ships.
We look forward to working closely with Congress to achieve
that goal. Thank you for the strong support these Subcommittees
have provided the Department of Navy and the opportunity to
appear before you today. We look forward to answering your
questions.
[The prepared joint statement of Secretary Geurts and
Admiral Moore follows:]
Prepared Statement by The Honorable James F. Geurts and Vice Admiral
Thomas Moore
Chairman Perdue, Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, Ranking
Member Kaine, and distinguished members of the Subcommittees, thank you
for the opportunity to testify on the Department of the Navy's ship and
submarine depot maintenance. The Department recognizes the need to
deliver lethal ships and submarines to the combatant commanders on
time, and is approaching ship and submarine maintenance with a sense of
urgency.
The Navy faces high-tempo operations, budget pressures, and a
fragile industrial base that has resulted in a maintenance backlog and
reduced readiness of Navy ships. In the 1980s, the Navy had nearly 600
ships in the Fleet and kept roughly 100--or 17 percent--deployed at any
one time. Today, our Battle Force stands at 290 ships, of which 81--or
28 percent of the Fleet--are at sea, increasing readiness challenges.
Though our warships are more capable and more mechanically reliable
than those of previous generations, maintenance and sustainment are
critical to ensure that those Fleet assets remain ready to deploy.
Having a stable and predictable budget is crucial to the Navy's
ability to execute contracts and maintenance actions required to keep
our Navy in the fight. Beginning fiscal year 2020 under a continuing
resolution (CR) introduces uncertainty, as the Navy attempts to execute
work planned for the current year with funding based on last year's
budget. The Navy has already had to postpone two availabilities planned
for the first quarter of fiscal year 2020--USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) and
USS Gonzalez (DDG 66). Delaying these planned activities has drastic
downstream impacts--injecting instability in the industrial base and
creating large cost impacts and inefficiencies that can extend beyond
the duration of the uncertainty. In most hearings we are asked what
Congress can do to support our efforts--the answer is simple, support
and pass the President's Budget on time.
increasing accountability
Recent on-time performance trends in both the public and private
sectors are improving; however, challenges remain. To address these
challenges, the Navy has undertaken a multipronged approach focused on
increasing accountability and improving productivity in both public and
private shipyards. In our public yards, we are growing the capacity of
the shipyards to meet the workload demand, improving the training and
productivity of the workforce, and making the needed investments in our
shipyards to ensure they can support our growing needs. In the private
shipyards, we have focused on improving the completeness, accuracy, and
timeliness of planning; working with the Fleet to adjust maintenance
schedules to level load the ports, revising acquisition strategies to
improve stability and predictability, and streamlining Navy inspection
points to improve efficiencies.
The Navy is preparing the second Long-Range Plan for Maintenance
and Modernization of Naval Vessels to forecast maintenance workloads
for all in-service ship classes over the next 30 years. This plan
complements the Navy's Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval
Vessels and establishes the framework to effectively sustain our
investments in today's fleet. The intent is to build a culture of
continuous evaluation of the industrial base capacity and capability
and provide the industrial base with stable and predictable workloads.
This will better enable the Department to support the shipbuilding
plan, and adapt to any surge demand if necessary.
Finally, the Department has established a Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Navy (DASN) for Sustainment to improve our ability to
plan, program, budget and execute the Navy's sustainment mission. DASN
Sustainment will have oversight of sustainment funding across the DON
(Department of the Navy) and will oversee and manage Navy and Marine
Corps sustainment and life-cycle management policies. This will allow
the Department to improve and align the complex drivers of maintenance
and modernization completion--that in turn will increase our output to
the Fleet.
public shipyards
In the four public shipyards, the Navy is focused on several key
lines of effort: growing the capacity of the shipyards to match the
workload demand; improving the training of the workforce; improving the
productivity of the workforce through innovation and improvements to
our business processes in both planning and execution; and making
needed investments in our shipyards to ensure a 21st Century shipyard
to match our 21st Century workforce.
The Navy's four public shipyards have seen over a 25 percent
increase in their planned workload since 2010. To match the growth, the
Navy has increased the size of our public shipyard workforce by more
than 9,000 people, from 27,368 employees in 2010 (measured in End-
Strength) to 36,696 employees in 2018.
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This growth was achieved approximately 1 year ahead of schedule and
is enabling us to stop the growth in the backlog of work and begin
working off that backlog earlier than planned. However, the rapid
growth of the workforce has resulted in a less experienced workforce
where 50 percent have less than 5 years of experience. To get new hires
trained more efficiently, the shipyards have transformed how they train
their new employees through learning centers that use both virtual
learning tools and hands-on work. The Navy has carried that innovative
concept to the waterfront by developing ``safe-to-fail'' areas where
artisans can experiment with new and innovative techniques to improve
throughput or save time during an availability. The net result of these
learning centers is that the shipyards have cut the time to create a
productive worker from the time they are hired by more than 50 percent
over the past 4 years. Additionally, the Navy is working to create
efficiencies in workforce training by standardizing and reducing
regional variability in processes across the public shipyards.
Developing Navy-wide procedures in areas such as welding will enable
authorized welders to work in different locations without the need to
be requalified.
To improve productivity, the Navy is testing innovative processes
to reduce the time and cost of maintenance availabilities. New
technologies such as cold spray and hull crawling robots have the
potential to produce significant results. Cold spray is a technology in
which metal powders are accelerated at high speeds and sprayed through
a nozzle, impacting and mechanically bonding to a surface. This
produces high performance coatings that can extend the life of legacy
weapon and hull mechanical systems, and reduces the time to accomplish
valve repair from 10 months at a vendor site to three days. Cold spray
is currently in use at three of our naval shipyards and will be
delivered to a fourth in fiscal year 2020. Hull crawling robots are
able to carry a variety of test equipment to conduct hull inspections,
non-destructive testing and biofouling removal. This obviates the need
for scaffolding or lifting equipment and is estimated to reduce dry
docking periods by up to two weeks while improving worker safety. Hull
crawlers have been ordered for each maintenance activity with an
anticipated delivery of tooling suites in March 2020. The innovation
project team at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard accomplished a complete 3D
imagining of a submarine, USS Cheyenne (SSN 773). This 3D imaging will
be used to plan and execute maintenance, reducing cost and schedule by
limiting the need for travel, excessive interference removal and lost
material.
The Navy is also leveraging the recent successes of the Naval
Sustainment System (NSS)--Aviation that has increased the mission
capability rates of its F/A-18 E/F fleet by creating a NSS--Shipyards.
Similar to NSS-Aviation, the NSS-Shipyards has brought in outside
business process experts to improve productivity and identify areas for
long-term improvement at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Puget Sound Naval
Shipyard. This includes a mobile passive Radio Frequency Identification
(pRFID) system, which is similar to a GPS that tracks material
throughout the shipyard. This creates a way for material targeting to
record the distance items under maintenance travel. It will also
eventually reduce costs by eliminating lost material and work hours
associated with locating misplaced material. The Navy will expand that
effort to all four public shipyards in fiscal year 2020.
The Navy is now in its second year of the planned 20-year, $21
billion Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) that will
fully transform shipyards originally designed and laid out to support
building ships of sail and coal into 21st Century shipyards dedicated
to executing complex maintenance availabilities on the Navy's nuclear-
powered aircraft carriers and submarines. Fully executed, SIOP will
deliver required dry-dock repairs and upgrades to support both current
and future classes of ships, optimize workflow within the shipyards
through significant changes to their physical layout, and recapitalize
obsolete capital equipment with modern machines that will dramatically
increase productivity and safety.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recently reviewed
the SIOP plan and identified opportunities for the Navy to enhance
reliability through improved cost estimating and better defining the
roles and responsibilities of the shipyards. The Navy is taking steps
to implement these recommendations, executing modeling and simulation
efforts to inform area development plans at specific shipyards and
provide a more complete cost estimate for executing SIOP. Additionally,
the Navy will continue to refine the roles and responsibilities for all
stakeholders to better execute projects at each of the four naval
shipyards.
In 2 years the Navy has delivered or started a series of SIOP
projects and begun the delivery of new capital equipment across the
four shipyards:
For Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility
(PHNSY&IMF), the Navy has delivered 150-ton heavy lift transporters to
support Virginia-class availabilities. More importantly, the Navy and
its industry partner tracked every aspect of the recent USS Asheville
(SSN 758) maintenance availability to build a ``digital twin'' of the
shipyard. This dynamic virtual shipyard will enable the Navy to
manipulate data and measure the impact of moving certain shops and
workspaces to different areas within the existing footprint. Once the
full capability is delivered in February 2020, the Navy will use this
data to reimagine the shipyard to improve productivity, safety, and the
quality of life of our shipyard personnel. PHNSY&IMF will also be the
first shipyard to receive a Dry Dock Production Facility (DDPF) which,
as currently envisioned, will enclose multiple dry docks and move much
of the production work to the waterfront.
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility
(PSNS&IMF) will be the second naval shipyard to have a digital twin
built. To ensure the Navy properly understands the complex workflow, it
will track both aircraft carrier and submarine availability. Work
started on this effort on October 15, 2019 and final delivery is
expected in fall 2020. PSNS&IMF received the first 55-ton mobile crane
this year which will allow the shipyard to more effectively execute
maintenance work.
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) replaced an obsolete and
maintenance-intensive lathe with a computer operated Horizontal Turning
Center. The center will improve productivity at PNSY and reduces the
maintenance burden on our workforce. Work has also begun on Dry Dock #1
in preparation for refueling selected Los Angeles-class submarines.
Efforts include building a super flood basin and P1074 which will be
dedicated to the Los Angeles-class Service Life Extension. Work on
PNSY's digital twin is scheduled to begin in 2020.
Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) has seen a number of military
construction efforts begin or deliver in the past year. On June 14,
2019, the renovated Waterfront Operations Support Facility (Building
1735) located near Pier 3 re-opened. This two-story structure houses 15
shop spaces and allows for work to be executed near to the ships,
reducing travel time and increasing efficiency. On July 1, 2019, the
Navy broke ground on a new Production Training Facility which will host
most of the training classes and shops for the entire shipyard.
Further, the Navy is in negotiations to award a contract to build a new
defueling and inactivation complex that will replace a 25-year old
facility. The new M-140 Complex will alleviate frequently required
repair work and support the increase in submarine inactivations planned
for the 2020s. The Navy also awarded a contract for a horizontal boring
mill for NNSY's Navy Foundry and Propeller Center in Philadelphia, PA,
to support Columbia-class and Virginia-class propulsor manufacturing.
NNSY took possession of a Bridge Mill which replaces two obsolete and
less effective machines to support aircraft carrier and submarine
shaft, rudder, and fairwater plane work. The Navy plans to begin NNSY's
digital twin effort in early 2020.
The net result of all these integrated efforts is that the Navy is
seeing positive results across the naval shipyard enterprise. This
includes completing nine of the last ten CVN availabilities on time or
early including the recent early delivery of USS Nimitz (CVN 68), the
Navy's oldest combat ship, from a docking availability at Puget Sound
Naval Shipyard. The four naval shipyards have reduced the amount of
workload carryover from one fiscal year to the next by nearly two-
thirds between fiscal year 2017 and fiscal year 2020, from a total of
603,400 work days carried over between fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year
2017 to a projected 287,500 work days between fiscal year 2019 and
fiscal year 2020. Additionally, the Navy has reduced delayed
maintenance by half, from 1,734 total days delayed in fiscal year 2018
to 894 total days in fiscal year 2019.
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This has resulted in three aircraft carriers and one submarine
delivered on time or early, along with the majority of our current
maintenance availabilities scheduled on time or earlier as well.
Currently, 13 submarines and two aircraft carriers are undergoing CNO-
level maintenance at the four public shipyards. Of those, eight
submarines and both aircraft carriers are on track to deliver on time.
private shipyards
Similarly, the Navy is focusing on several lines of effort in
private sector maintenance. This includes improvements in planning,
improvements in forecasting availability durations, working with the
fleet to adjust maintenance schedules to level load the ports, and
acquisition strategies that are designed to improve the long term
stability and predictability of private sector surface ship maintenance
planning and execution--a key ask of our private sector industry
partners. There are 45 CNO surface ship availabilities in execution at
private shipyards across the country, and over 100 ships in planning.
Successful execution of complex ship maintenance and modernization
availabilities requires solid planning. Accurate assessment of the
ship's maintenance needs, early identification of the scope of
modernization, and timely procurement of Long Lead Time Material are
all key tenets of solid planning. The Navy is accelerating its planning
milestones to drive earlier identification of availability scope,
ordering material earlier and soliciting contracts earlier--ultimately
leading to earlier contract awards. The migration to earlier milestones
is enabled by improvements in the Navy's ability to use maintenance
data coupled with engineering analysis to determine lifecycle
maintenance requirements and accurately estimate the scope of future
repairs. Navy's goal is to award all contracts 120 days prior to the
start of an availability (vice 60 days), which gives industry double
the time they previously had to develop planning products and buy
materials. This initiative was informed by industry's feedback, and has
proven successful. The first ship in this pilot program, USS Shoup (DDG
86), undocked 10 days early from BAE Systems' Pride of California dry
dock in San Diego.
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swrmc supports uss shoup undocking
USS Shoup's (DDG 86) early undocking from BAE Systems' Pride of
California drydock on August 28, 2019.
The Navy understands the importance of workload stability to a
healthy and efficient industrial base. The method of contracting that
workload is evolving from a complete one ship availability at a time
strategy that did not provide long term workload predictability to a
strategy that groups ship availabilities both horizontally and
vertically to provide longer term predictability to incentive industry
to grow the needed capacity. Vertical groupings for ships with similar
start dates will include multiple overlapping availabilities within a
single solicitation. The Navy awarded the first three-ship vertical
grouping contract in February 2019 for USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51), USS
Bulkeley (DDG 84) and USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44). Horizontal groupings
for ship availabilities occurring in a series will include multiple
sequential availabilities within a single solicitation. The first
horizontal grouping contract was awarded on September 25, 2019 for USS
Chosin (CG 65) and USS Cape St. George (CG 71) to Vigor Marine, LLC,
providing stability in the workload in the Pacific Northwest. Based on
industry feedback on ways to improve, the Navy also recently awarded a
double docking availability for the USS Stethem (DDG 63) and USS
Decatur (DDG 73). By awarding multiple availabilities, industry gets a
backlog of work that creates confidence in hiring and retaining a
skilled workforce and investment in infrastructure.
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Informed by strong dialogue with the ship repair industrial base,
the Navy has implemented multiple initiatives that are improving
performance in contract execution. Initiatives include utilizing pre-
priced changes to eliminate previously-required approvals for small
dollar changes, which typically account for 70 percent of growth work
schedule delays. The approval cycle time was reduced to two days as
compared to the historical average of 31 days. The Navy and industry
also worked together to implement an initiative to right-size quality
assurance checkpoints, reducing the number by 50 percent by eliminating
overlapping or duplicative requirements. The Navy has worked to become
more proactive in availability planning by increasing directive
maintenance strategies to improve the forecasting model for ship
availability durations and port industrial capacity. All five of the
fiscal year 2019 availabilities that incorporated this model have
delivered on time. With better estimates of projected availability
durations and capacity to accomplish the work, the Navy has been able
to reduce workload peaks and valleys at each port to create a more
balanced and executable schedule for the industrial base. The net
result has been a 21 percent improvement in the number of on-time
deliveries for availabilities that completed in fiscal year 2019 as
compared to fiscal year 2018.
The Navy is working with our industry partners to improve cost and
schedule performance for submarine maintenance in the private sector.
Cost overruns and delays in schedules on USS Helena (SSN 725) at
Newport News Shipbuilding Huntington Ingalls Industries and USS
Montpelier (SSN 765) at General Dynamics Electric Boat in fiscal year
2019 have resulted in the deferred maintenance for USS Boise (SSN 764)
and USS Columbus (SSN 762). The Navy will need to balance the workload
across the public and private sectors to support future maintenance and
modernization as well as ensuring new ship construction efforts are
adequately supported.
The biggest risks to execution of this plan are continuing
resolutions and lack of an on-time budget. Under a CR, the Navy has
less cash available than requested which limits decision space for
maintenance and operations. As a result, the Navy is forced to make
hard decisions about what to fund and what to defer or cancel. Due to
the first fiscal year 2020 CR, the Navy delayed award of maintenance
contracts for USS Gonzalez (DDG 66) and USS Bainbridge (DDG 96),
creating instability in the industrial base. The Navy also has plans to
award five additional ship maintenance contracts before December 20,
2019, which may be adversely impacted by the second CR. This
uncertainty significantly undermines our efforts to provide greater
stability and predictability to industry, and limits industry's ability
to plan for future work by hiring workers, ordering materials, and
investing in maintenance and infrastructure upgrades. The Shipbuilders
Council of America recently highlighted the impacts of a long-term
continuing resolution in a November 13, 2019, letter to the
congressional defense committees. A survey conducted by the Council
found that 94 percent of companies will have to stop hiring if the
Department continues to operate under a CR. The impact will be felt
even more strongly by small businesses, which may face a five to 50
percent workforce reduction and a 15 to 35 percent reduction in annual
revenue according to the survey results. These effects will become more
pronounced if the CR extends further into the year, significantly
impacting planned work on both coasts.
conclusion
The Navy fully understands that the on-time delivery of ships and
submarines out of maintenance availabilities is a national security
imperative. The Department is taking a holistic approach to ensure both
our public and private yards have the information, people, and
equipment needed to maintain the world's greatest Navy. The Navy will
continue to work with Congress and our industry partners to address our
challenges and to efficiently maintain and modernize the Navy's growing
fleet by growing the capacity and capability of the industrial base.
Senator Perdue. Thank you, sir.
Ms. Maurer.
STATEMENT OF DIANA C. MAURER, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE
CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Maurer. Good morning, Chairman Perdue----
Senator Perdue. Good morning.
Ms. Maurer.--Ranking Member Hirono, Ranking Member Kaine,
and other members and staff. I'm pleased to be here today to
discuss the Navy's efforts to maintain the ships and submarines
that are vital for our country's national security interests.
As was clear from your opening statements, you're well
aware of the significant challenges the Navy continues to face
maintaining the fleet. We share your concern. As Ranking Member
Kaine already pointed out, we found the Navy was unable to
complete scheduled ship maintenance about 75 percent of the
time, leading to over 33,000 days of maintenance delays. Those
are days that surface ships, submarines, and aircraft carriers
were unavailable for operations and training. As you can
imagine, these persistent and substantial delays hinder the
Navy's efforts to rebuild readiness.
My statement for the record today highlights several
interrelated factors that have contributed to those delays.
First, extended deployments and decreased crew levels mean
important maintenance is often deferred, leading to more time-
consuming and costly depot-level repairs. The high tempo of
operations has also increased the maintenance strain on the
fleet. Ships are being used more intensively, which means, in
practice, declining ship conditions. Once planned maintenance
is underway, the Navy is hindered by the conditions of the
public shipyards. The conditions of the facilities at the four
public yards is poor, and the average age of equipment is
beyond its expected life.
The Navy has also faced challenges recruiting, training,
and retaining a skilled workforce. In recent years, the Navy
has hired thousands of workers to help turn ships around
faster, but fixing a submarine or an aircraft carrier requires
advanced technical skills, which can take years to achieve,
and, at many shipyards, more than half of the employees have
less than 5 years of experience.
Further, drydock capacity is extremely limited. The Navy
lacks sufficient dry docks to support a third of its planned
maintenance periods. Many of the dry docks it currently has are
not large enough to support future submarines, and none are
capable of supporting the Ford-class carrier.
To help with these and other challenges, my statement today
discusses 17 recommendations we've made to the Navy over the
past few years; and the Navy, by and large, agrees with us and
has started taking actions to address our recommendations.
That's encouraging.
We are also encouraged by the Navy's increased leadership
attention to sustainment issues and the development of a plan
to improve and modernize the public shipyards. Under this plan,
the Navy will upgrade dry docks, facilities, and equipment to
meet the future planned maintenance needs. The Navy has also
created a program office to bring unity of effort and
bureaucratic clout to what will be a 20-year undertaking.
So, all in all, a good start. But, it is still too early to
tell if the plan is going to work. The Navy still has to
develop the all-important details of what needs to be done, and
determine how to keep the shipyards running while also
rebuilding and enhancing them. Further, the current estimated
price tag of $21 billion is, essentially, notional and likely
to be billions more, because it does not include major costs
for inflation or improving underlying infrastructure. The Navy
agrees with our recommendations to address these issues, and
has plans in place to do so.
The Navy has also made important progress on increasing
crew size and is exploring an enhanced approach to maintenance
planning. Although it will take years to fully implement these
efforts, we are encouraged by the increased commitment to
address the many contributors to maintenance delays. However,
this will need to be sustained for years to address the Navy's
significant and persistent maintenance challenges and ensure
the Navy can reliably provide modern, ready naval forces to
meet our national security needs.
Chairman Perdue, thank you very much for the opportunity to
testify this morning, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Maurer follows:]
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Senator Perdue. Thank you very much.
We'll try to do--start this at 5-minute periods of
questioning. We'll have second round if we need it.
I'll start off very briefly.
Secretary Geurts, you mentioned CRs, continuing
resolutions. I have been--you know, Senator Hirono and I and
Senator Kaine--Senator Kaine and I are on the Budget Committee.
We've been arguing about--fighting this together. We all are
like-minded about this. But, I'm not sure a lot of people in
Congress understand how it affects you guys in a detailed way.
Can you talk about and elaborate--first of all, the past
Secretary of Defense said that--and each of the services now,
at our request, has measured this, and we're talking about
somewhere around $20 billion of--per year, if a full-year CR
were impacted. It is $4 billion, alone, in the U.S. Navy, is
the best estimate we've been given from the Navy. Can you
elaborate, though, on the specific impact of postponing the
Bainbridge and Gonzalez availabilities right now? I know there
are actions that have been taken related to ship maintenance
because of the current continuing resolution we're under right
now.
Also, as part of that, Ms. Maurer, you mentioned that
workforce was an issue. I'd like the Navy--Admiral or
somebody--tell me how many people we're able to hire right now
under this current CR. New people. Specifically with regard to
these shipyards.
So, the first part of the question, please.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I mentioned in my opening
remarks, a CR is devastating in a couple different ways. If we
had a full CR, under the current rules, the Navy would lose
$20.5 billion of its buying power this year alone. That's a
combination of new programs that we couldn't start. We have a
new helicopter trainer----
Voice. Fiscal year 2020?
Secretary Geurts. That is in fiscal year 2020, yes, sir--
$20.5. About $5 billion of that would be new programs we
couldn't start. The new frigate program, we could not start.
Helicopter training programs, which directly impact readiness,
we couldn't start. Fighter aggressor programs we've got on the
books, we couldn't start. Another $5 billion would be plans
where we had planned to increase the number or quantity of
buys, and we're held to last year's budget level. Then $10
billion would be just in rate increases. What that means to
Admiral Moore and myself is, we have to look at every activity
where we have a great plan. As I think we'll talk about in the
hearing, the key, especially on the maintenance side, is good
planning and early planning. Now all those good plans and early
plans, which we've been working really hard to put in place,
all get thrown off. Then, if you're in private industry, and
you don't know--you know, you don't know if the Navy's going to
have $20 billion or not, you're not going to make investments,
you're not going to hire folks, you're not going to do the
things we need to do to increase capacity. All that instability
will lead to us having to plan and replan and replan. Last
year, when we had a full-year budget, we obligated 9 percent
more than we did in the previous year, with 9 percent less
contracts. So, you could see that efficiency in play.
For the two maintenance availabilities you talked about,
we--those were ones we had wanted to plan early. We had to put
weeks and weeks of delay in that till we could figure out how
to finance those initial availabilities. The shipyard that was
going to do the work didn't know when the contract was going to
come, and they're the ones that, to keep the ship going out on
time, they have to absorb that risk of us not being able to
award the contract when we wanted to. That will contribute to
the risk of maintenance delays. One of the biggest factors in
maintenance delays is late planning and late award. When we
don't know what money is coming, in what sequence, at what
time, all of our plans then have to be replanned and re-
executed.
Tom can probably address the workforce issue.
Admiral Moore. Yes, sir. A little bit of--the good news is,
on the public-sector side, in our shipyards, they're mission-
funded, so they're--that bill's paid up front. It won't impact
the workforce in the naval shipyards doing our nuclear work.
The bad news is, the brunt of the impact to the people is going
to be on the private-sector surface ship repair. This has
really been our big challenge, frankly, over the last 2 years.
I think we've kind of turned the corner on the public yards,
but the private sector is looking for that long-term stability.
Go ask any company president out there; if they don't know that
they've got a stable plan and guaranteed work, they're not
going to hire. That lagging in the hiring is going to then have
a deleterious impact on our ability to complete those
availabilities on time. So, from the people standpoint in the
private sector, surface ship repair side, it absolutely has a
major impact.
Senator Perdue. So, you have a--I'm sorry--you have a test
underway right now to--we--I think we passed this, this year.
The past CNO--most recent CNO actually requested this. We made
it happen, that you can extend this over multi years. I think
we extended to 3 years, as a test, the maintenance allocation.
How does that get impacted when you're under a CR like this?
Secretary Geurts. Well, the first immediate thing is, since
that's new, that we can't even start the pilot until--under the
current rules. But, essentially, once we get to that point,
that will give us a little bit more flexibility.
Senator Perdue. But, you----
Secretary Geurts. But, we haven't been able to start the
pilot, because of the CR.
Senator Perdue. That's the whole point. Thank you.
Secretary Geurts. Yeah.
Senator Perdue. I'm going to yield--oh, I'm out of time.
If Senator Hirono is okay, I'm going to ask the Chairman of
the other committee to make his opening remark, if you are
ready.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAN SULLIVAN
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
To my Senate colleagues here, I apologize for being late. I
was double-tasked with a Judiciary Committee hearing, where I
was introducing Alaska's nominee for a Federal District Court
position. So, it was quite important. So.
But, I'm going to just--for efficiency's sake, I will
submit my written statement for the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Sullivan follows:]
Prepared Statement by Senator Dan Sullivan
The Subcommittees meet today in a joint session to receive
testimony on U.S. Navy ship and submarine maintenance. I am pleased to
be co-chairing this hearing with my friend, Senator Perdue. This topic,
like many others, touches on both the Readiness and Seapower
Subcommittees, and I appreciate you agreeing to hold a joint hearing. I
also want to thank our witnesses for being here and I am hopeful they
will help us better understand the challenges associated with the
current maintenance situation.
Over the last decade amidst sequestered defense budgets, the United
States Navy prioritized shipbuilding over ship maintenance in order to
contend with the growing navies of our Great Power Competitors--Russia
and China. Unfortunately, the operational need for a larger fleet drew
our attention away from the equally critical need to maintain our
current naval fleet. As result, we saw the overall readiness of our
shipyards weaken. We are now scrambling to regenerate what we lost.
As evidence of these issues, GAO estimated--in a 2018 report on
``Maintenance Delays Facing the Attack Submarine Fleet,''--that over
the last 10 years,
``the Navy has spent more than $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2018
constant dollars to support attack submarines that provide no
operational capability . . . [and] attack submarines will have incurred
10,363 days of idle time and maintenance delays as a result of delays
in getting into and out of the shipyards . . . [with] 8,472 days [of
this total] due to depot maintenance delays.''
What do these figures mean in simple terms? Well, due to
maintenance delays, the Navy spent the equivalent of a San Antonio-
class LPD--$1.5 billion--to have attack subs sit idle in port, waiting
for their own maintenance. Cumulatively, these subs sat idle for 8,472
days--over 23 years--awaiting or undergoing heavy maintenance. That's
OVER TWO DECADES of lost operational presence in places like the South
China Sea, the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, or the Arctic.
In another recent study, GAO found that since fiscal year 2014, the
Navy fleet has spent over 33,000 more days in maintenance than
expected. That's 91 years of delays. It's almost as if these delays are
now so commonplace that they are just seen as a cost of conducting ship
maintenance.
So why are these delays happening? Last year, during a joint
Subcommittee hearing on Navy and Marine Corps readiness, GAO listed
shipyard workforce gaps and inexperience as key limiting factors to on-
time maintenance. In fact, GAO found that less than half of the skilled
workforce at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and less than a third of the
skilled workforce at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard had--at a minimum--5
years of experience as maintainers. Just 5 years.
Now we find ourselves in an untenable situation in which
operational demands have increased and ship maintenance is keeping
pace. I want everyone to understand that when this happens, our fleet
and sailors cannot adequately train to the level needed to ensure they
are ready for tomorrow's conflicts. This is unacceptable, and we need
to do better.
A key component of the National Defense Strategy is rebuilding
military readiness while building a more lethal force. As we look to
rebuild and maintain Navy readiness, we must also look at implementing
sustainable operational schedules, something we cannot do if
maintenance is not completed on time. I understand that the Navy is
getting at some of those factors through its ``Shipyard Infrastructure
Optimization Plan'' and ``Performance to Plan Initiative,'' but more
must be done. As such, I encourage the Navy to look at other shipyards
in the U.S. that might be able to help offset this dire maintenance
backlog.
Rebuilding and maintaining readiness is critical as the Nation
faces an increasingly complex security environment, and it is crucial
that we understand the scope of the issue and how Navy leadership plans
on making big shifts before the damage is irreparable. I look forward
to hearing from our witnesses on this important topic.
Senator Sullivan. I want to thank the Chairman for--
Chairman Perdue for calling this important hearing. I will have
questions that relate to my opening statement and other issues
when my time for questions is up.
Senator Perdue. Then we'll go to Ranking Member Hirono for
her questions.
Thank you.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As we sit on the Armed Services Committee, there is no
question that every single one of you, every time you testify,
you talk about how the CR is an insane way to conduct anything.
Yet, here we are. So, once again, I apologize for the fact that
we can't seem to get our act together in Congress to move
things along.
I do have a question about Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard for
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. I'd like to ask you
specifically about the plans for Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard,
which the Navy has identified as the first project in the
Shipyard Optimization Plan. I understand from your testimony
that work on the modeling and simulation will be completed by
February 2020, which will greatly inform the details of the
projects and how best to align the shipyard. Unfortunately,
time is not on our side, since the first Virginia-class
availability is scheduled to come to PH--well, Pearl Harbor in
fiscal year 2027. If we're going to be building dry docks, et
cetera, to accommodate that, I mean, it takes a while for that
to happen.
I understand you're exploring options for a new graving dry
dock to support the future workload at Pearl Harbor, but you
also just released a request for information, RFI, to explore a
floating dry dock. I want to support the best option for the
shipyard to sustain its critical work for the Navy in the
Pacific, but I am concerned with the reality of the situation
we face regarding timeliness and cost. A graving dry dock would
cost well over $1 billion, which would consume a significant
portion of the Navy's entire military construction budget. It
would also take 5 years to construct, and the Navy then needs 1
year to certify the dry dock. A floating dry dock would provide
a more near-term capability at a lower cost. But, is that what
the--is that the right solution for the shipyard?
Since we won't have the data from the modeling until
February 2020, and that is well after the fiscal year 2021
budget submission, can you detail for me how the Navy plans to
budget for and execute the projects necessary to ensure Pearl
Harbor is able to perform the planned workload, starting with
Virginia-class in fiscal year 2027? Please provide a detailed
timeline and what decisions need to be made, and when.
Start with--well, either one of you.
Admiral Moore. Yes, Senator. Thank you for the question.
Absolutely, we can execute the work at Pearl Harbor
Shipyard. Two of the three dry docks there today are fully
capable of handling Virginia-class submarines. The one that
we're looking to upgrade does not, that we need to fix.
We are looking at two choices. We are looking at a graving
dock, because, from the Navy's perspective, it's a--it's good
for 100 years, it's a lot easier to do the maintenance in it,
you don't have to take it out of service on a regular basis,
like you do a floater, to do maintenance.
But, we are looking at a floater, because it is--as you
said there, it is less expensive up front. We've got a business
case analysis going on in doing that concurrently with the
modeling. I expect to be through that in the next couple
months, and we'll be able to come tell you, you know, what do
we think is the best solution, whether it's a graving dock or a
floater.
They each have some benefits to them, and they each have
some downsides to it, too. The float--the reason we put the RFI
out was because we felt like we--you know, we were obligated to
the taxpayer to look at alternative solutions to the graving
dock. That's why we did that. We'll come through the details of
that, and we're happy to share that with your staff and with
you when we get through that.
Senator Hirono. I mean, the long-term approach would be to
have a graving dock, but we are where we are with the
resources. So--well, please keep me up to date.
We recognize the current contracting strategy for surface
ship maintenance is not delivering the ships back to the fleet
in a timely fashion, and the lack of time to plan the execution
of the availabilities or to the long-term of the long lead time
items and speed of contract change adjudications are all
contributing to delays. What are the top three things that the
Navy and industry can work on to reduce the delay--delays in
completing surface ship maintenance? You don't have to go over
the CR problem.
Secretary Geurts. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, ma'am.
I think the first thing we are doing is making sure we're
improving our planning. So, that is understanding the work and
scheduling the work and budgeting the work the right way. Then,
awarding that work, our goal is to do that 120 days prior to
the work commencing. So, our goal is, for every one of these
availabilities, to award the contract 120 days in advance so
the performer has time to get ready for the ship to come in
there, get all the staff, get all the materiel. That's not
where we have been, traditionally. We're moving our way towards
here, and some of our early pilots are showing real benefit
there.
The second piece, then, is, have the right contract
structure. and so, the contract structure that can deal with
changes as they occur, very rapidly. So, we have added clauses
for small-dollar changes. We can negotiate those on the spot.
For larger ones, have a streamlined process so we don't delay
the work adjudicating, if there is an unplanned activity.
Then, the third piece is making sure the government's
oversight is as effective as it needs to be, but not over-
burdensome. Admiral Moore's team has done a pilot, where we've
reduced the checkpoints and inspections by over 50 percent.
That is actually allowing the work to get done much more
fluidly and improving the efficiency.
That's what we're doing, kind of, on the eaches. I would
say, at the broader system level, making sure we balance the
work right and we don't ask for more work than can be performed
in an area or in a concentration area.
Working with the fleet to get the work scheduled in a more
balanced way, and then understanding the capacity and not over-
driving the system with more than they can execute.
Senator Hirono. You're doing that across all the four
shipyards, right, making those kinds of efficiency changes?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. This is mostly on the private
side, so it's more in the private yards, so it's, you know,
shipyards across the country. The other thing Admiral Moore's
team has done is gone out proactively and certified--ask who
has dry docks, certify those in advance to open up. We're
opening up a broader competitive base now. We're getting more
capacity across the country to absorb the work so we don't, you
know, put an unrealistic demand on the workforce.
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to want a second round. I have
more questions.
Thank you.
Senator Perdue. Senator Sullivan.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I do want to say at the outset, you know, there's a lot of
talk about the CR. We all think it's bad. This is a very
bipartisan committee. I try to be very bipartisan in my
approach to this job. But, it's not just the CR. It's the
Defense approps, which is being filibustered right now by the
Minority Leader. I've been in this body for almost 5 years.
This the ninth time that the Minority Leader on the other side
has decided to filibuster the Defense approps. It's
inexcusable. Inexcusable. I wish we could fix that, because,
you know, using political leverage, which is exactly what he's
doing, the men and women in the military--because we all care
about it--for other objectives, political objectives, I find to
be outrageous. So, it's not just the CR. We could stop--we
could fund the military right now by stopping the filibuster on
the Defense approps today, and yet, my colleagues don't want to
do it. So, sorry. I get a little upset about that issue.
Let me ask Ms. Maurer. According to the GAO, the lack of
capacity--that's what they say--is a major issue. But, could
you talk in a little bit more detail on what that means, a lack
of capacity, with regard to ship maintenance? Does that mean
more skilled workers, more dry docks, new shipyards? I mean,
what do we need to address this lack of capacity when we talk
about reducing the maintenance backlog?
Ms. Maurer. Thank you, Senator, for the question.
When we talked about lack of capacity in my statement
today, and an associated report, we're speaking specifically
about dry docks and the inability, under the current set of dry
docks the Navy has, to complete about one-third of the
scheduled maintenance periods over the next 20 or so years.
That's a major problem. We're talking specifically about
maintaining nuclear submarines as well as aircraft carriers.
So, as you can imagine, having the ability to do that
maintenance is extremely important.
Having this new plan to enhance and upgrade the shipyards
is a good step in the right direction, and we are encouraged by
the fact that the Navy has developed this plan. The Navy is not
alone in, sort of, the sorry state of the infrastructure for
depot-level maintenance. The other services are in the same
boat, but the Navy is ahead of them, in terms of developing a
plan. But, it's going to be a while before we see the all-
important details.
The Navy is taking a very measured approach, which is the
right way to go when you're talking about something that's
going to take 20 years. But, it's still too early to say
whether or not it's going to get them on track.
Senator Sullivan. Let me ask----
Ms. Maurer.--what they have on paper, it will, but it's
still too early to know.
Senator Sullivan. Let me ask another question that's
related to that. The Navy, primarily, almost exclusively uses
shipyards for maintenance that are at the homeport or near the
homeport of current vessels. Of course, there's a huge
important justification for doing that. But, yet, we still have
a large backlog. Should the Navy explore the use of alternative
shipyards for, say, smaller ships, not carriers or subs, like--
shipyards like those in the Great Lakes, or even those in
Alaska? This is something I've been trying to get the Coast
Guard to look at in Alaska, because they move their ships all
the way down to Alameda, and yet we have shipyards that are in
Alaska that are--for Coast Guard vessels that are home-ported
in Alaska, that could do it much more cheaply. Would this be
one area where the Navy could help reduce its maintenance
backlog? I'll tee that up, not just for you, but also Admiral
and Mr. Secretary. I think it's an important question for all
of you.
Ms. Maurer. That's a great question. It's, ultimately,
largely a political one. So----
Senator Sullivan. Why is it political?
Ms. Maurer. Well, because it comes down to Congress making
a decision on, potentially, appropriating funds to open up new
shipyards to serve the Navy's public needs.
Senator Sullivan. But--I'm--so, let's get rid of the
politics. Do you think it is a good idea, or not? Do you think
that's a good idea as it relates to the backlog?
Ms. Maurer. I think it's definitely something that's a good
idea for the Navy to consider. But, from a geo-perspective, we
haven't--we don't have a position on whether or not there
should be additional public----
Senator Sullivan. What about you, Admiral?
Admiral Moore. Well, I think it's a fantastic idea. I think
we're already doing that. We've already--we're taking steps to
try and improve--bring other people into the markets. I'll just
use an example. We've gotten Vigor, in Portland, who had
capacity to do littoral combat ship work. We're putting the--
work up there. We're exploring putting other work up there. We
have a growing need for people that can do littoral combat ship
work. So, the idea of reaching out and growing the capacity and
bringing other people into the market's a good one. I think----
Senator Sullivan. Mr. Secretary, do you agree with that?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I mean, I----
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Admiral.
Secretary Geurts.--I come from a Special Ops background to
plan for the unplanned. We're talking a lot about peacetime
maintenance. I think a lot about wartime maintenance. If we had
to surge and double and really geographically----
Senator Sullivan. But, we need the surge now, don't we? I
mean, I----
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I'm just----
Senator Sullivan. It's peacetime, but look at these----
Secretary Geurts. I'm just----
Senator Sullivan.--look at----
Secretary Geurts.--I'm just saying there's a win-win here.
Senator Sullivan.--these backlogs.
Secretary Geurts. Yeah.
Senator Sullivan. I mean, they're unacceptable.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I guess where I was going, that
I think there's a win-win here. As we open up more, that also
gives us an ability to surge more.
Senator Sullivan. But, there--is there a legislative block?
I tried to get a provision in the NDAA that wasn't accepted. It
kind of addressed this. The House has something, I think, in
this provision. But, there's no legislative prohibition, is
there?
Admiral Moore. Well, this--you know, there are rules on
where we can put ships for taking them out of homeport that we
have to follow. Availability has to be longer than 10 months to
take it out of homeport. But, you know, that's something we
could seek legislative relief on. There's nothing preventing us
from looking to try and expand markets to do the work. Again, I
use the shipyard in Portland as an example.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Perdue. Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to offer the counter-position to my friend from
Alaska on the reason the Defense appropriations bill is not yet
done. We want to do a Defense appropriations bill, but we want
Defense funds to be spent for defense. We don't want Defense
funds to be treated as a personal piggyback and allow the
President to take money out of MILCON projects that are serving
our families to use on a nonmilitary priority at the
southwestern border. That's the issue. We're having a debate
about the Defense budget, but what we know from experience is,
this President believes he can declare an emergency over
something that's not military in nature, and rummage through
the Pentagon Budget like it's a piggybank. Those of us who
serve on the Armed Services Committee want to know, when we
agree on a Defense appropriations bill, that the money will be
used for national defense and will not be pirated away for pet
political projects.
Senator Sullivan. Nine times in----
Senator Kaine. You had your opportunity----
Senator Sullivan. Nine times in 5 years.
Senator Kaine.--Senator.
Senator Perdue. Regular order.
Senator Kaine. If you, on your side, can agree with us that
Pentagon money should not be pirated away for nonmilitary
projects, we can get this done. But, until there is that
agreement, that's what's holding this up right now.
I'm going to battle for the best Defense budget I can, and
I know my colleagues are going to do the same thing, but we
don't want it spirited away for pet projects. When we had our
military leadership at the table in Armed Services hearings,
and we've asked them about the situation at the border, they've
uniformly described it as a problem and challenge, but they've
also uniformly agreed it is not a military emergency. Those of
us on the Democratic side of the aisle just don't--just believe
that Pentagon money should not be pirated away for nonmilitary
purposes, because once that priority is established, any
President can declare an emergency and go into the Pentagon
Budget and take money away for nonmilitary purposes. That's the
principle that we're trying to fight for that I think is in the
long-term best interests of this Nation's defense.
Let me focus now on our side of the aisle, the need to
provide you budget stability. I commend to you--and I think
Senator Perdue mentioned this--I commend to you a bill that the
Budget Committee has recently passed which would try to do some
significant reforms of our budget process to reduce the
instability that you are experiencing.
One element of the bill--it's a complicated bill, and it
has some controversy connected with it, because it would really
try to restore the budget process, sort of, as it was
envisioned in the 1974 Budget Control Act--but, one element of
this would be to switch our fiscal year to a calendar year. You
know, there's good and bad cholesterol. I sort of think there's
good and bad CRs, or at least acceptable and unacceptable CRs.
We almost never get our budget done by October 1. Why? Well,
often there's an election in the following month, and there's
all kinds of reasons not to. When we get deals, it tends to be
at the end of the calendar year. The fact that we're in a CR
now is not a good thing, but if you just look at the history of
the way Congress budgets, it's not an unusual thing.
A friend of mine was a landscape architect, and he used to
say, ``If you're designing landscapes, don't put sidewalks
down. Put the landscape down, then see where people walk, and
then put the sidewalks there.'' Congress tends to get deals,
when we get deals, at year-end, not at the end of September.
One of the features of the budget bill that Senator Perdue
and I and Senator King and others on the Budget Committee
worked on--and it was the first bill to come out of the Budget
Committee with a bipartisan vote in 30 years--one of the
features of that bill was to move us to a calendar year, where
we're more likely to actually get the work done in a way where
then you can count on it. I will say this. I say this to
colleagues on both sides of the aisle. There is no excuse for
us not getting a budget deal before we leave for Christmas.
There is no excuse for us punting this into next year. I hear
concerns expressed, or worries, on both sides of the aisle,
that we may be into next year before we get a budget deal done.
That would be malpractice. That would be malpractice of this
body. So, I would say to the leadership, both parties, and--we
should all do everything we can to get the budget deal done
that we need to.
I want to ask a question about this long-range maintenance
plan that the Navy has. It was March 2019, and it cites a
shortfall in private shipyard capacity to meet the forecasted
future ship maintenance workload. The report states that the
number of private shipyard dry docks presents challenges for
future workload demands, and that may reduce the margin for
schedule changes and delays. How does the Navy, sort of,
develop forecasts of future workload on the maintenance side?
How can we use that forecasting to help us do a better job of
whittling down these backlogs?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. Last year was the first year we
kind of put a 30-year maintenance plan in there to go with the
shipbuilding plan, kind of, to get to the earlier comment.
Senator Kaine. Which was very innovative.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. That was the first-generation
product. As we continue to mature that, I think that provides
the overall, kind of, Rosetta Stone that we're tracking, in
terms of our future needs. What we're also doing, as mentioned,
is going out and looking where there's already drydock capacity
we just haven't, for whatever reason, been able to either
certify or leverage. We're working with MSC. They're doing
some--Philly shipyard is doing maintenance work. They hadn't
done that before. That's another dry dock that we can take
advantage of. What we're doing is using that as a long-term
forecast. Then, if we can show that site picture to industry, I
think, I'm confident they will build infrastructure if they can
get an understanding of the market potential out there. What we
haven't done well in the past is shown them a clear and steady
market signal for them to go make the investments they need to
make either to maintain the equipment they have or improve
their dry dock.
Senator Kaine. Thank you.
I'm over my time, and I'll save additional questions for
written or a second round.
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Senator Perdue. Thank you.
Senator Hawley, I understand that Senator Ernst has yielded
her slot.
Senator Hawley. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you, Senator Ernst. I appreciate it.
Secretary Geurts, Admiral Moore, let me ask you how the
maintenance challenges that the Navy has been facing is
recommending--informing your recommendations on fleet size as
you work through the force structure assessment.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. So, I mean, obviously we've got
to have that in balance. You know, building new ships that you
can't maintain is not tremendously useful, or not having the
fleet size you need to operate globally is not useful. That's a
constant discussion within the Navy. Admiral Moore and I have
spent plenty of time, in the last 3 months as we're building
the 2021 budget, trying to get that balance right. The manpower
element is, I would say, the third piece of that triangle, so
we've got to have, the availability, the capacity, and--both in
terms of ships and people. I think, when you see the 2021
budget, you'll see our latest view on how to get that balanced
correctly.
Senator Hawley. Admiral, do you want to add anything?
Admiral Moore. Yeah, I would just say that the good news,
on the public-sector side, we're where we need to be. So, as we
go from 291 ships to 355, there's--you know, we're really at
the 11 aircraft carriers we're at today. There will be a growth
of about--a little over ten submarines over the next 40 years.
But, we think, through Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization
Plan and improved productivity in the shipyard, we can manage
that.
Most of the growth from 291 to 355 is going to be in the
private sector, and that's going to be, really, the focus of
our effort, which is--gets back to the importance of what the
Secretary was mentioning--stable, predictable budgets--so a
business out there will make the investments and grow their
capacity to do the work, going forward. I'm convinced that I
have the capacity in the public shipyards today to manage the
slow--the slight growth that we're going to have in nuclear
work. I think the bigger challenge is in the private sector,
bringing other people into the market and providing them a
signal so that they will make the investments necessary, and
hire, so that we have that capacity necessary today. That's
been our biggest challenge in surface ship maintenance today.
Senator Hawley. Very good. Well, I look forward to seeing
more of your work on this and as we look at next year's budget.
It seems to me that we have a--we clearly have a resiliency
problem right now, given the maintenance issues. We are in a
position, it also seems to me, where resiliency and capacity
are in some tension. Prioritizing resiliency, given the needs
and the demands of the National Defense Strategy, particularly,
again, in the Indo-Pacific, seems of great importance.
Let me ask you this. Over the last 25 years, the Navy's cut
a lot of its forward infrastructure relied on to maintain
forces while they were deployed. So, to what extent do you
think--we can start with you, Mr. Secretary--that the Navy
needs to recapitalize some of that capacity--for example, in
the form of tenders--so our ships can perform more of their
maintenance duties while they are on deployment?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I'd--the other balance that
we're really looking hard at is, making sure we've got all the
logistics squared away. That's all of the ready force, that's
sealift, that's maintenance, that's oil, or that's tenders. We
probably got a little bit out of balance with that, and that's
been another focus, over the last couple of months, as we've
looked at putting our budget priorities together. We absolutely
need to make sure that we've got that balanced out.
We are going to have to fight to get to the fight. That's a
little different than what we've had to do over the last 20 or
30 years. So, a lot of, kind of, heavy thinking in that, both
in terms of operational planning, logistical planning. Then,
what does that mean to materiel or logistics, whether it's
expeditionary, forward-based, or geographically dispersed?
Senator Hawley. Admiral, do you want to add anything to
that?
Let me ask you about crew sizes. The Navy's cut crew sizes
for many of its platforms over this same time period, which
left fewer trained hands available to perform maintenance
duties while the ships are deployed. I understand the Navy has
already restored some of those maintenance billets. Do you
think it would be beneficial to restore additional billets? Do
you need Congress's support to do so?
Go ahead, Admiral.
Admiral Moore. I think we have all the necessary decision
space to do this without congressional help. I think it's
always a balance when you--you know, the--one of the large
life-cycle cost drivers for a platform is the number of people
on board, because the cost of people has been getting more
expensive. But, there's a balance. GAO's done some work on this
to show that sailors actually do maintenance, and, when they
don't do that maintenance, that maintenance then gets passed on
to the depots, which costs more. Some of that work which you
would catch early on if you did basic maintenance and corrosion
control would not expand into more expensive maintenance later
on. So, I think we're going to have to--as we get into these
future platforms--littoral combat ship, future frigate--we're
going to have strike the right balance between the desire to
get minimal manning on the ship and--with a recognition that
there's a downstream cost to pay associated with that. But, I
think we have all the authorities that we need to fix that,
sir.
Senator Hawley. Very good.
Last question. We've talked already today about capacity
limitations in our shipyards for conducting ship and submarine
maintenance.
Let me go back to dry docks for a second. Mr. Secretary, if
we implement the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan,
will that get us to a place where we have enough drydock space,
in your estimation, to perform the necessary maintenance work
in a timely manner?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir, absolutely. We're going to take
advantage--there's going to be a little downturn as the
submarine numbers go down. That will give us a spot to
recapitalize so that, as the numbers grow back up, we will have
all the capacity we need.
Senator Hawley. When do you anticipate we would get to that
place under the plan?
Admiral Moore. Oh, you know, it's ongoing. We're tracking,
very closely, the dry docks. As Senator Kaine and I had talked
about previously, we've got--you know, when we built the mixing
bowl, here, we still had to get to work. We're still--we are
going to build the dry docks, along with a maintenance plan,
along with the growth of the fleet, to make sure that we get
the maintenance done in time--or to get the dry docks done in
time to support the maintenance that we're going to need down
the road. It's an ongoing effort over, probably, the next 20
years or so.
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, again, Senator Ernst.
Senator Perdue. Senator Jones.
Senator Jones. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thanks, to the witnesses, for being here.
Kind of following up a little bit on the expansion of the
maintenance. I know that the subs and the carriers are all
done, you know, at these shipyards. Is there any value to
exploring how expanding the market, so to speak, for our
nuclear subs and carriers to private sector to perform non-
nuclear-type maintenance on these ships? Is that possible? Is
that feasible? What's the risk? What's the reward? Secretary?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I'll start, and I'll ask
Admiral Moore to provide some more of his perspective on it.
We are already--we have sent some nuclear submarines to our
nuclear submarine shipbuilders to do maintenance
availabilities. Quite frankly, the performance there hasn't
been exactly stellar, either. A lot of that is the same issues
we have in the public yards. You've got to train the workforce.
Doing maintenance is different than doing construction. We've
got to--you know, it's taken us a while to get the training and
proficiency level up there.
I foresee, on the submarine side, always wanting to have a
capacity to do some of that work in the private new
construction yards, because that gives us, again, some surge
capacity and gives us opportunities where we need to balance
our workload. I see that going on, on the submarine side.
We do some minor work on the carrier side. Admiral Moore
can speak to that.
Admiral Moore. Yes, sir. Thanks for the question.
So, the work itself probably has to be done in the nuclear
depots just because of the nuclear element. But, we've already
taken steps to try and give some of the non-nuclear work, non-
skid tank work--you can go down the list--and, in particular,
into small businesses. I think there is more opportunity to
grow capacity by giving some of this work that the--in
particular, small business can do, and free up the skilled
artisans at our public shipyards to work on the really--the
critical things that only they can work on.
Senator Jones. All right. Well, great. Thank you.
The--following up on that just a little bit, then, the
workforce is obviously a real critical component to all of
this. When we have these budgetary issues--and I'm--having been
in this body, now, for about 20 months, I may not be as
optimistic as my colleagues about any fix right now. I just
don't see it happening in the real world that we're living in.
With that, we have instability in the workforce. We get workers
laid off, we get them hired back, you have to train. You know,
what steps can we take--given just understanding that we're in
an instable budgetary process here, what steps can we take, or
are we taking, to help maintain that level of consistency
throughout so that these workers--and that may be including
transferring workers. I don't know. But, I'd like to have that
addressed by each of you, if possible.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. Maybe I'll take the, kind of,
private-side maintenance.
We are working hard within the Navy to, kind of, work the
cash flow issues and prioritize keeping the availabilities on
track. We've been able to do that, thus far, in these first two
CRs. As that CR gets longer and longer and we're facing a $20
billion shortfall in the Navy for a full-year CR, eventually
that becomes untenable. We've kind of done the workarounds. I
think the challenge is that uncertainty. If you're a business
owner, it looks to be very problematic. What's really
concerning is all the small businesses that are subcontractors
to the larger shipyards. They're really the ones that take the
hit, because if they--you know, if work doesn't show up for 2
or 3 months that they had planned on, that can be devastating
to a small business. Some of the larger private yards can carry
through that. But, you know, we're looking at all the different
opportunities we can to create as much stability as we can on
the private side.
Senator Jones. Great.
Ms. Maurer. I think, on the public side, we issued a report
last year looking at workforce challenges across the entire
depot enterprise, including the public shipyards of the Navy.
We found that there are a lot of innovative things happening
down at individual depots, individual shipyards: retention
incentives, pathways programs to encourage high school students
to pick up these skilled trades, a lot of things of that
nature. So, that's good. But, the recommendation we had to the
Navy and to the other services was to take a high-level look to
figure out what is actually working and really drill down on
those efforts, because, in a lot of the--particularly in the
public yards, there are competitions for these skilled trades.
So, someone who is very skilled at repairing a ship, working at
the Norfolk shipyard, can potentially go down the street and
possibly make more money in the private yard. In the public
sector, they need to figure out a way to make sure they retain
that skilled workforce. Our recommendation, which the Navy has
started to implement, will help them address that challenge.
Senator Jones. Awesome. That's great. Well, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's all I have.
Senator Perdue. Senator Ernst.
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, to our witnesses today, and may--I
think we've really gone over the budget issues quite
thoroughly. Thank you all for sitting through this.
We do have our own challenges in Congress. I would say that
I did sit with Senator Perdue on the bipartisan, bicameral
Budget and Appropriations Process Reform Committee. Mazie, you
were part of that, as well. At the end of that process in 2018,
we absolutely came up with nothing that would change Congress's
behavior. It is on us, folks. So, thank you for bearing with
us. We will have to work through that. Only four times in the
past 45 years has Congress ever passed budget and
appropriations on time and on process. Four out of the last 45
years. We have to find the intestinal fortitude to work through
this. It's not on you, folks. It's on us. So, thank you.
The GAO has estimated that, since fiscal year 2008, the
Navy has spent more than one-and-a-half-billion dollars to
support attack submarines that provide no operational
capability, because they're sitting idle, waiting on
maintenance. I think we've gone through a number of those
issues on how to mitigate that downtime--contract
renegotiations, using private facilities. Of course, we have
absolutely no coastline in Iowa. We have no shipyards in Iowa.
So, we can't help you that way. But, we do have a number of
businesses in Iowa that are active in supporting the Navy. I'd
bet every single U.S. Navy ship has a Carver pump in it. Carver
pump, out of Muscatine, Iowa. We do have interest in making
sure that our ships are up and operational.
I'm not going to dig into shipyards. That's not my area.
But, what I would like for all of you to discuss, though, is
other ways that we can mitigate some of these issues.
Secretary, I think you and I have talked over AI before, and
how that can be very helpful in some of our maintenance
schedules. If you would dig in a little bit deeper, how can we
use artificial intelligence, whether that's predictive
maintenance, other areas? If you can talk through that a little
bit, how would that be helpful for us?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I think the issue is one--
we've talked some of capacity, but there is also an
affordability issue. Even if we had the capacity, we've got to
drive down the cost of maintaining the ships, or we won't have
the money. That's where we're seeing some amazing novel uses of
technology. AI--we've got a process in the Navy called
``perform the plan,'' where we're using heavy data analytics to
really dig in and figure out where the levers are that we
should invest in which will have the biggest payoff. That's
already providing great benefit to us, and we're looking at
bringing more performers in there. AI certainly can play in
predictive maintenance and looking at some underlying
activities going on.
The other area we're using is, I'll say, nontraditional
suppliers in maintenance--robotic corrosion, you know,
ablation, taking off old paint, using novel techniques that
would normally take thousands of hours of labor, that we may be
able to do more effectively.
Each of the shipyards has a really robust and, kind of,
thriving innovation program right now, where they're bringing
in folks from Iowa and everywhere else. My message is, if you
have an idea on how to reduce costs or do things more
effectively, we want to get you involved in the program. We are
getting a lot of non-shipbuilder, ship-repair, traditional
industry players that are making a huge difference for us.
Senator Ernst. No, that's incredible. I'm glad that the
Navy has really been an active participant using AI and other
methodology to decrease cost to the taxpayers. It's really
important that we have a strong force, but we're doing it
responsibly with what tax dollars we have.
One of the other areas that we've been looking at is
reworking those existing contracts to make sure that future
contracts are including technical data rights. Can you expound
on that a little bit, as well, and where are we with that
situation?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. A little bit less on the ship
maintenance side as our other contracts, but it impacts
maintenance, because if we don't have rights and we're locked
to a specific vendor, or don't have the data to do the
maintenance, then that can be an issue. A lot of hard work on
the Navy. We've kind of got it dedicated now on data rights,
industrial--intellectual property team-working to make sure
each of our contracts has the rights we need, again, to go off
and provide the full flexibility to find the most cost- and
mission-effective solution.
Senator Ernst. Yes. I appreciate it very much.
Again, thanks, to all of you. You know, I was doing a
visit, not all that long ago, where you--we made the point that
you don't necessarily have to be a defense hawk or a fiscal
hawk. You can be both. All of us on this committee support you.
We support you. We just want to make sure our dollars are being
used to the fullest extent possible, protecting those
taxpayers, maintaining a strong force. So, we want to make sure
that we're doing that. But, it is up to us, as Congress, to
make sure we have our act in order, as well, so that we can
properly fund you.
Again, thank you very much for being here today. I
appreciate your input.
Thank you.
Senator Perdue. Senator King. Another member of the
infamous Budget Committee.
[Laughter.]
Senator King. But, I think there's a plan underway now
that's a good one.
Senator Perdue. Well, I just heard we're 90 percent--our
late number is 90 percent, just in case you guys want to do a
parallel. I hope you noted that. Four times in 45 years. Sorry.
Senator King. There you go. Thank you.
I want to pull back the focus on maintenance. Admiral,
perhaps you can answer this question, 291 ships currently in
the fleet. How many of those are either at sea or could go to
sea tomorrow? In other words, what's--what percentage of the
fleet is ready to go tomorrow?
Admiral Moore. Well, I've got--doing quick math in my head,
which is always problematic in public--I've got 53 ships in--
currently in maintenance availabilities, in public sector and
the private sector. So, those 53 ships aren't available. Then
there's probably another 50 or so that have just come out of
maintenance, that are, we would say, early in their training
cycle, that would--we probably would not deploy. I can take----
Senator King. That's about a third. About 30 percent.
Admiral Moore. About a third, and that's probably typically
what we would see.
Senator King. Now, my question is--I don't know how to
analyze that figure. Are there any good benchmarks? What's the
availability factor of Carnival Cruise Line or American
Airlines with their large, bulky metal objects?
[Laughter.]
Admiral Moore. Yeah, well, I mean, Carnival Cruise Line is
going to have a higher availability----
Senator King. Or commercial shipping, generally.
Admiral Moore. Commercial shipping, in general, just
basic--because of what they use it for and the type of
maintenance that they have to do to maintain the ship, and
because of the fact that----
Senator King. Well, I'm looking for a benchmark. I mean,
I'm not suggesting----
Admiral Moore. Okay.
Senator King.--that's the right one, but, you know, I don't
know how to analyze 30 percent. Is that a good number, a bad
number? My sense is, that's a high number.
Admiral Moore. Well, I think, historically, that's probably
been--what it's been. I think the--you know, the Optimized
Fleet Response Plan is designed or trying to provide more SIOP
to the fleet from what we've had previously. If you look
historically at aircraft carriers, for example, you know, we
started in a 24-month cycle, back in around 2000, where the
ship was in maintenance for about 6 months, and then it had
about, you know, 10 months of work-up and then a 6-month
deployment. So, you would say, ``Hey, it was only deployable 25
percent of the time.'' Today, in a 36-month cycle, you know, 6
months of maintenance, about 10 months to work up, and the
ship's available, you know, almost 60 percent of the time for--
to----
Senator King. I want to follow up on Senator Hawley's
question, which I thought was a very good one. That is, How
much can we do while the ship is underway? Has some serious
analysis been done of that? Because one of the problems that's
been cited here today is the high ops tempo, the longer
deployments, the more active deployments. It seems to me if we
do some really serious thinking about that, that's an
opportunity to diminish the maintenance challenge if we can
keep the ships in better shape while they're deployed.
Ms. Maurer. We do a lot of maintenance when--while we're
underway, but it's not the deep maintenance that you would need
to keep the ship running.
Senator King. Has the Navy, though, done a--an indepth
analysis of this option, a think piece, if you will?
Admiral Moore. Can I just take that for the record, sir?
Senator King. I'd appreciate that.
[The information referred to follows:]
Admiral Moore. There are three echelons of Navy ship
maintenance, which vary based on the significance of the work
being carried out, the personnel and facility performing the
maintenance, and the ship's operational status during repairs.
The three echelons are Organizational Level Maintenance,
Intermediate Level Maintenance, and Depot Level Maintenance.
Organizational Level Maintenance (O-Level):
Organizational-level maintenance is the lowest maintenance
echelon. It consists of all maintenance actions within the
capability and resources provided to the organization that
routinely oversees equipment operation (e.g., ship's force). It
is the first defense against allowing small defects to become
major material problems, which could impact ship operations and
mission capability.
Intermediate Level Maintenance (I-Level): I-Level
maintenance requires a higher skill, capability, or capacity
than O-Level maintenance. I-Level work is carried out by
centralized repair facility personnel such as Navy fleet
maintenance activities, Regional Maintenance Centers (RMCs),
battle group maintenance activities, or intermediate
maintenance activities (IMAs). It is normally conducted during
Continuous Maintenance Availabilities (CMAVs) throughout the
training cycle.
Depot Level Maintenance: Depot-level maintenance
is the highest maintenance echelon. It consists of maintenance
tasks that focus on repair, fabrication, manufacture, assembly,
overhaul, modification, refurbishment, rebuilding, test,
analysis, design, upgrade, painting, assemblies, subassemblies,
software, components, or end items that require specialized
facilities, tooling, support equipment, personnel with higher
technical skill, or processes beyond the scope or capacity of
the intermediate maintenance actions (IMA). For non-nuclear
ships, depot level maintenance is conducted by private
shipyards. The Navy conducted two studies on the Surface Force
in the past 9 years: the Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force
Readiness in February 2010 and the Comprehensive Review of
Recent Surface Force Incidents in October 2017. Both studies
highlighted the need for increased Organizational (O-Level) and
Intermediate (I-Level) Maintenance to improve the material
condition of ships in the Fleet. The Navy Maintenance community
is addressing this by increasing the amount of I-Level
maintenance that can be performed by sailors while underway and
improving sailor training and certification so there are more
qualified individuals capable of executing such maintenance.
However, a significant amount of the maintenance and
modernization work can only be executed during depot-level
availabilities and thus cannot be performed while at sea. For
example, much of the depot-level work requires dry-docking, and
fuel and weapons to be removed from the ship. Other maintenance
work requires systems to be taken off-line for an extended
period of time, which is not possible while the ship is
underway. In addition, some I-Level maintenance actions are
linked to these depot level work packages, and therefore must
be carried out during the depot level availability. The Navy is
working to increase the amount of I-Level maintenance work
performed by sailors shipboard and at the Regional Maintenance
Centers (RMCs), reducing the work package during depot level
maintenance availabilities. As a result of the Fleet Review
Panel of Surface Force Readiness, the Navy reestablished I-
Level Maintenance as a competency of the RMCs and directed the
RMCs to increase Active Duty personnel by 1,587 sailors in the
Fleet Concentration Areas. The Navy now has 2,100 sailors
supporting ship repairs and gaining valuable hands-on
maintenance experience. Through execution of production work,
these sailors participate in the Navy Afloat Maintenance
Training Strategy (NAMTS) program and certifications so that
when they return to sea duty they have the knowledge, skills,
and ability to execute routine and emergent maintenance.
Trained sailors who have the right technical documents, tools,
and industrial plant equipment onboard are able to accomplish
overhaul and repair of pumps, valves, engines, and motors and
execute some welding work, as well as a significant amount of
preventative maintenance. By developing journeyman skills, the
Navy is developing the workforce necessary to conduct deep
maintenance at sea and reduce the amount of contracting
maintenance work. For submarines, class maintenance plans
dictate what maintenance needs to be accomplished between in-
port maintenance periods. As part of the class maintenance plan
process, NAVSEA and SUBMEPP update each hull's underway
maintenance requirements based on hull specific conditions and
previously deferred maintenance.
Senator King. If they haven't, I would suggest that it--
it's--it would be a useful project to sort of approach it with
a--as a blank sheet of paper and say, ``What--how much could we
do without having to go into the dry dock?''
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. The only thing I would add is,
we also do a fair amount of modernization at the same time. So,
separately, we're doing----
Senator King. Sure.
Secretary Geurts.--a lot of activity to figure out, How do
we streamline modernization, particularly with our IT systems,
so we're not ripping out cable and ripping out computers, and
be able to upgrade in place? That's another important
difference than a commercial--they're not generally doing as
much rip out and replace.
Senator King. That's an upgrade, as opposed to painting and
scraping.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. But, we do them in the same
period. We talk about maintenance and modernization. We've got
to work both, and we are working----
Senator King. You have to do that with 40-year assets.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir.
Senator King. I understand that.
Secretary Geurts, you've been talking about--you gave us
some good figures, at the beginning, about improved, sort of a
momentum in this, sort of shorter delays, more availability.
What are the bottlenecks? Is it money? Is it infrastructure? Is
it management? Where do we need to target our attention? I say
``our,'' including all of us here.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I think one of the real
powerful things the committee did by putting under the RDA the
responsibility for sustainment was ensuring and incentivizing
that we're bringing a full set of the acquisition and
contracting tool set to play, here. What I tended to see,
coming in, was, we had a bunch of availabilities that we
treated each as an individual product, you know, and we were--
competed each individually. We did--it tended to be very late,
and it would be, kind of, akin to, you know, every Friday,
calling for a painter to show up Monday, and doing that 52
times, as opposed--and so, getting a more systematic look at
it, and figuring out what's really creating the bottleneck--
part of it, on the private side, is not a line of sight or
confidence in the vision that's coming, and so, if you don't
have confidence in the work coming, you're not going to make
the longer-term investments to have the right workforce and the
right infrastructure.
Senator King. I'm out of time, but I want to leave you with
a quick suggestion. When you buy a ship, you should also buy
the intellectual property to the parts so that the Navy can
print, which is where it's going, its own parts, which I think
would be a significant increase in efficiency rather than
having to wait to order parts and get them in. I just--same
thing--I've made this recommendation. You should not only buy
the ship, but buy the rights to the--to make the parts, as
necessary.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. Maybe in a followup I can--I
mean, we have 3D printers we're deploying with ships now, so--
--
Senator King. Good.
Secretary Geurts.--I'd love to give you----
Senator King. I could see them all--I could see 3D printers
deployed on the ships.
Secretary Geurts. They are. We already have them deployed
on ships. I--and I'll give you an update on that, maybe
separately, as a follow-up.
Senator King. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Perdue. Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all very much for being here.
I want to follow up on the 3D printer with respect to the
impact on the submarine industrial base, because that's one of
the challenges that I think we would all agree we face. Back
during the Cold War, we had over 17,000 suppliers. Now we have
about 3,500 active suppliers. As we think about what we need to
do to ramp up production for the Virginia payload module for
the Columbia-class, that's a challenge, which may be made worse
if we no longer are looking for some of those suppliers to
provide parts. So, I guess my real question is, What are we
doing to support and grow that industrial base that we're going
to need?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I talk a lot about the
submarine--the generational production we're doing on the
submarine side. One of the key enablers to that is the supply
base--regrowing that, robusting it, and making sure it's
capable of delivering. What we're trying to do is--we have an
integrated enterprise plan, where we take all of our submarine
work, all of our aircraft carrier work, look at it in total,
and make sure the supply base sees that in total so they
understand the marketplace. That's starting to bear some fruit.
The Congress has been very helpful with a lot of the
initiatives, in terms of funding, to get the supply base up to
the ramp we need. When I think of the 3D-printed issue, I don't
think of it displacing a supplier doing work. I think of it
more, how can I do some expeditionary maintenance----
Senator Shaheen. Yeah. No, I was sort of----
Secretary Geurts.--in place----
Senator Shaheen.--being facetious when I was----
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Shaheen.--saying that. But--I appreciate those
efforts, but what is the signal that the Navy sends when we
have a contract for nine Virginia-class submarines with General
Dynamics Electric Boat and we still haven't committed on the
tenth submarine? Doesn't that send sort of a mixed message with
our interest in seeing the industrial base do the ramp-up we
need?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. Specifically to ensure that
didn't cause an issue with the supplier, in that contract we
have awarded all the materiel for all ten submarines. So, to
the supplier, they're getting orders for the--all the materiel
for ten ships. That's because we didn't want to cause
disruption in their plans.
Senator Shaheen. Great.
Secretary Geurts. I think we've mitigated that risk in the
supply base. The option is really for the construction element
of the ship.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
I want to go back to the Infrastructure Optimization Plan.
I had the opportunity, a couple of weeks ago, to be at the
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard with a number of other members of the
delegation to do the groundbreaking for the paint, blast, and
rubber facility, and also for the Defense Logistics Agency
Warehouse, which are critical pieces if we're going to continue
to make the shipyard more efficient. As you know, one of the
projects that is part of this effort is the Multi-Mission Dry
Dock Project, which--can you confirm if that's still on track
for the fiscal year 2021 budget request?
Admiral Moore. Yes, ma'am. It's still on track. That's a
key component of our overall strategy.
Senator Shaheen. Good. Thank you.
As you're looking at--you've discussed a number of things
today with respect to what will increase the Optimization
Plan--increase the costs of that Optimization Plan. Ms. Maurer,
you talked about the 17 recommendations which could help
address that. How is the Navy looking at those recommendations
and implementing them?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I am in total agreement with
the GAO, in terms of their identification that we need to
continue to refine our cost estimates, have an independent cost
estimate done. The way we're approaching that is, as you know,
modeling the shipyards, building the digital models. That will
then lead to, kind of, our area defense plan--or area
construction plans. Then, that will allow us to get the
refinement in there. Separately, and I think uniquely, we've
put a combined program office team--we're going to run this
like a program, not a collection of individual products--or
projects. I think that's unique--I haven't seen that before in
the DOD--given the importance of this. I think that, one, we
have a dedicated team to it, with all the right discipline.
We've got the recommendations on how to cost-estimate better.
That will all come together and continue to give us more
confidence that we've got the projects scheduled in the right
way to do the right job with a budget that we understand and
can execute.
Senator Shaheen. Does that sound right to you, Ms. Maurer?
Ms. Maurer. Yes, it does. We're very encouraged by the fact
that the Navy concurred with our recommendations. It is--I
don't think it is--it is also very important they set up this
program office, because, up until now, to try to finance
improvements at the yards requires pulling from multiple pots
of money, wiring together in different parts of the Navy org
chart. Pulling it all together in one piece is important.
The last thing I'll say, though, is, since this indeed a
20-year plan, it's very important for Congress to continue to
keep its eye on it, as well as Navy leadership. Of course, with
the GAO, we'll keep track with what's going on with the
implementation of our recommendations.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
I'm out of time, but I just want to thank you, Secretary
Geurts, for attending the USS Thresher Memorial ceremony at the
end of September. As we all know, the Thresher was the worst
submarine accident in naval history in the United States, and
it took the lives of 129 men on board. To finally get that
memorial meant so much to the families. To be able to recognize
the SUBSAFE Program that grew out of that tragedy, and the
difference that that's made to keeping our sailors safe, it's
really important. So, thank you very much.
Secretary Geurts. Thank you, ma'am.
Senator Perdue. Senator Duckworth.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, to the witnesses, for being here today.
I believe that, in any discussion on the readiness of Navy
ships and submarines, we must include a discussion of
logistics. Specifically, military logistics on transportation,
I feel, is often overlooked. I would like to discuss the fact
that Navy ships and submarines would not be complete without
discussing the readiness of the strategic sealift fleet, as
well.
The sealift fleet is comprised of both Maritime
Transportation Administration, MARAD, ready reserve fleet
vessels, and Military Sealift Command surge vessels. If fully
activated, the entire body of the strategic sealift fleet would
be tested. This capacity is vitally important in getting to and
sustaining a fight, especially when you're looking at places
like Africa or the Asia-Pacific region. The time to focus on
the readiness of this entire strategic sealift capability is
now, and not during a national crisis or war.
As you all know, the strategic sealift is managed by two
organizations, the Sealift Command and the Maritime
Administration. Given that we have two organizations in two
different departments that are responsible for the U.S.
military strategic sealift capability, I believe it's really
important that we consider the readiness and maintenance needs
of MARAD's ready reserve fleet when discussing the Navy's
overall ship and submarine maintenance status.
Mr. Geurts, Vice Admiral Moore, what are you currently
doing to track and capture the maintenance needs of MARAD's
ready reserve fleet? How do you balance and ensure their
maintenance cycles are prioritized?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. It's a really critical
element of our Nation's warfighting force and, to your point,
sometimes gets overlooked. A lot of work over the last, I'd
say, year and a half. We did a report to Congress in March of
2018, kind of, outlining the need to have the sealift force the
Nation needs, just like we need the Navy the Nation needs. We
get daily updates from MARAD on the status of all of their
ships, what--you know, their reliability, what their challenges
are. They certainly have challenges. It is an aging fleet. We
put together, kind of, a three-prong plan, in terms of service
life, extending, perhaps replacing, a small number with used
boats, and then having a recapitalization plan. We outlined
that in March, and we're continuing to execute that right now.
Senator Duckworth. Did you want to add anything, Admiral?
Admiral Moore. No, ma'am.
Senator Duckworth. Okay.
Does the panel believe that the Navy appropriately values
the ready reserve fleet and provides adequate funding for their
maintenance? If not, what level of funding do you think they
need?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I think we are, over the last
2 years, renewing our commitment to that. We have been adding
money in the budget every year to ensure we can extend those
ships that are aging out, and then look for creative ways to
recapitalize them. Probably opportunities to continue to work
with Congress to come up with the best balance of that--kind
of, those three levers to pull: extending current ones,
replacing some of those with available used fleet, and then
buying new, and we'll to continue to work with you on that.
That's part of our 2021 budget discussion, is to make sure we
have that balanced out the right way.
Senator Duckworth. Okay.
I'm deeply concerned about the abysmal status of the surge
sealift--the Navy's surge sealift vessels. In total, it's--what
I have is that two of the 15 vessels are currently not mission-
capable, 5 of the 15 are deemed unseaworthy and have now lost
their Coast Guard certificate of inspection, and, basically,
half of the Navy--almost half of the Navy's surge vessels can't
even set sail.
Admiral Moore, what is your maintenance plan to repair the
Navy's surge sealift vessels and return them to a fully
operational status?
Admiral Moore. Yeah, ma'am, unfortunately, I don't--MARAD
doesn't fall under me, so I can't give you a good answer on
that, but I'm certainly happy to take that to record and get
to--get that question to the right person and get you an
answer.
Senator Duckworth. Right, they don't fall under you, but
you're going to be relying on them. What are you doing to nudge
them along or--I mean, we can't be in these silos and say,
``Well, they don't fall under us.'' But, half of them are not
even seaworthy, and we're going to rely on them--the Navy's
going to rely on them. So, what are we doing?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. So, again, for the current
fleet, we have been increasing the funding to service-life-
extend the existing ships and then working on a
recapitalization plan at, kind of, the Navy level. Admiral
Moore doesn't own the maintenance of those. Those fall under
the broader perspective. I think--I'd love to offer a commenter
who would give you a detailed brief of how we see that laying
out, the resources we're putting in towards this, and where we
see the readiness now and growing in the future.
Senator Duckworth. I definitely would like to get a
briefing on that recapitalization plan. I do think that we have
a silo problem, here. The Navy, overall--DOD, overall, is going
to be relying on those ships. To say that, ``They don't fall
under us'' is, I think oversimplification, because I think we
need to be working jointly together when half of them are not--
I mean, they've lost the Coast Guard certification.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Duckworth. That's unacceptable.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Duckworth. Thank you.
I yield back.
Senator Perdue. I understand we're going to have a series
of votes at--starting at 11:30, but we will go through a second
round, here, very quickly.
I just have one other followup question. I'll have other
questions--I'll put them in the record--particularly with
regard, Ms. Maurer, your report on the equipment. We didn't
quite get to the equipment. But, this is shocking to me, as an
ex-manufacturing guy. That some of our equipment is 15 years
past its useful life is shocking to me, at--I believe that was
at Norfolk, on page 13.
Can you parallel--Ms. Maurer, can you parallel the
aircraft? We've talked about surface ships. I know that's not
totally within your--but I'd love to get a contrast between--I
know you have a background in this. Where are we in--in
beginning of 2017, about two-thirds of our F/A-18s really
couldn't fly that night. They were waiting on--that day--they
were waiting on maintenance. I know the Navy's made great
progress in that. I know you just had a presentation on the F-
35, as well. Parallel for us the depot issues on aircraft that
are coming off our aircraft carriers, as well--and briefly, if
you don't mind.
Ms. Maurer. Sure. Real briefly, big picture, the Fleet
Readiness Centers, which are the--part of the Air Force that--
or part of the Navy, rather, is taking care of Navy aviation,
faces some of the similar challenges in terms of
infrastructure, similar challenges in terms of workforce, maybe
not as acute as they see at the public yards, but,
systemically, it is the same. We have some ongoing work right
now that's looking at the current status of fixed-wing as well
as rotary-wing aircraft, in terms of their mission capabilities
and historical operation and sustainment costs. That'll be
coming out early in the coming calendar year so we have some
more information on those trend lines. But, essentially,
readiness levels and mission capability levels are not where
they need to be for Navy aviation or for the Air Force.
Senator Perdue. Thank you.
Senator Hirono.
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
In September, my colleagues in the Hawaii Congressional
Delegation sent a letter to Secretary Spencer about the Navy's
intent to cancel plans to construct a drydock waterfront
facility, P-214, at Pearl Harbor Shipyard, and the impact that
this would have on workforce morale, quality of life, and the
Navy's ability to achieve efficiencies in maintenance and
availabilities for the Pacific fleet. P-214 is a project that
has been authorized and appropriated twice to address vital
shortcomings at Pearl Harbor. In light of the GAO report, I'd
like to reiterate my concern that cancellation of this project
is premature and will have an undesirable and negative impact
on the workforce at Pearl Harbor that has been asked, for
years, to work in often substandard conditions. Despite these
conditions, the workforce at Pearl Harbor has sacrificed and
persevered to meet their mission of ensuring the readiness of
the Pacific fleet. It is long past time to demonstrate to the
workforce that new capital improvements to the infrastructure
are on their way.
I'm interested to learn--and this is for you, Secretary
Geurts and also Admiral Moore--to learn why the Navy chose to
do this, this cancellation, before the new proposed facility is
fully analyzed and evaluated, designed, and costed, especially
given the preliminary cost estimates of the new drydock
production facility estimated to be between $1.5 and $2.0
billion. I mean, don't get me wrong, I want to see a new--you
know, the new drydock production facility, but I do have
serious concerns with the Navy's ability to adequately budget
for such a significant project.
Really, timing-wise, the analysis that you're undergoing
will be completed next spring to determine the feasibility,
while the funding for the canceled project, P-214, is good for
5 years. I think you understand why I'm concerned about the
premature cancellation. So, will you explain to me why you
needed to cancel P-214 while you're still undergoing an
analysis process?
Admiral Moore. A lot of--ma'am, thank you for the question.
I mean, we're fully committed to the upgraded drydock
production facility that's going to go in. This particular
facility, at $45 million, was relatively small and a small
portion of the yard. Our early analytical work showed that the
return on investment was going to be small compared to what
we're going to get with the drydock production facility that's
going to go in there next. Rather than spend money there and
then have to take that down when it gets superseded by the new
production facility, we made the decision that it would be
better to press on for the drydock production facility. You
have my commitment, you're going to get a--either a new graving
dock or a floater, and you're going to get a drydock production
facility that's going to be state-of-the-art, that is going to
set Pearl Harbor, first and foremost, ahead of everybody else.
Senator Hirono. But, you're not spending this $45 million
right now. It's good for 5 years. Why not leave that on the
books?
Admiral Moore. I believe the Navy's intent, because of
some--was to use that to continue to work on the refueling
facility that has to be completed at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
The money is going to be reprogrammed to do that necessary
work, because that work has to be finished----
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I--again, I will make the
same commitment. I'm also working very closely with our
environmental and installations group to see how we can
accelerate these larger facilities that we've talked about
here, given their importance and the criticality of ensuring we
have the right facilities for the workforce here. You're
absolutely right, we need to demonstrate to all the workers in
our shipyards that we care about them, we're going to invest in
them and give them the world-class facilities they need.
Senator Hirono. Well, apparently that message is still--you
know, it hasn't assuaged the concerns about what is deemed.
This is a concern shared by our delegation, that this is a
rather hasty cancellation.
The GAO testimony today is based on previously published
work in 2015 and 2019 regarding ship maintenance and the whole
slew of issues that have already been raised. The GAO made 17
recommendations, and the DOD has concurred with most of them,
and has fully implemented six. I don't know if this is
something that, Secretary Geurts, you can respond to as to what
the other--the remaining recommendations are, and where we are,
and the status of meeting those recommendations, or if this is
a question that should go to the Secretary of Defense.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I take the GAO's
recommendations and our commitment very seriously. I agree with
the analysis in the--at the end of Ms. Maurer's testimony, kind
of, outlaid, kind of, status on those. A number of them are,
kind of, longer-reaching recommendations, and we're going to
work closely with the GAO to ensure they know where we are, and
then, quite frankly, use their skills and perspective to ensure
we are acting in the way we need to and get the best practices.
It's got my personal attention. I've looked through each one of
them, and hold me accountable to implementing them.
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Senator Perdue. Senator Blumenthal.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Secretary Geurts, for speaking with me on the
phone the other day before the signing of the Block 5 contract
with Electric Boat. Thank you for your and other members of the
panel's support for our submarine-building program there and
elsewhere around the country. I think we're all agreed, in this
room at least, that our submarines seem to be the most
survivable leg of the nuclear triad, and that Russian
advancement in this area underscores the importance of
investing in this strategic advantage. There's no way around
the need for investment and engagement, not only in the marque-
named builders, but also the suppliers, the defense industrial
base, the supply chain, which need, as much as anything else,
that investment.
You and I talked a little bit about the capability of
Electric Boat and other private contractors to meet the needs
under that contract and others. The Block 5 contract has an
option for a tenth submarine. I think we need an eleventh
within that same time period covered by the contract. But, the
question that we discussed is whether there will be the
capability to do the Virginia-class building and Columbia-
class, an unprecedented challenge for our defense industrial
base.
The key to it, in my view, is workforce training. You
alluded to it in your testimony, and you specifically
mentioned, quote, ``improving the training of the workforce''
as a key-line effort in the public shipyards. I want to
emphasize how important workforce training is in the private
shipyards, and how important it is for there to be close
collaboration between the Navy and private partners in meeting
the training deficits that we face right now.
You visited Electric Boat this August with Secretary Esper.
You saw Electric Boat's active learning centers. They're doing
all the right things. We just need to make sure they are scaled
up. Instead of hundreds, we need to train thousands.
Let me ask you, as well as Admiral Moore, do you believe,
as I do, that proactively addressing these looming workforce
shortfalls in the private yards is essential to ensuring on-
time delivery of the Columbia-class and the Virginia-class
programs?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I would say workforce
development for the Navy, even broader than all that, is the
number-one issue, whether that's in training sailors, whether
that's in training our maintenance teams, whether that's in the
public yards, whether it's in the private yards, or whether
it's new construction, whether it's repair. I'm very encouraged
by a lot of the, I would say, innovative techniques, our
Electric Boat, Newport News, HI, is using, as well as in our
public yards, to get after that. We've lost a generation of
vocational skilled training as a kind of core, and so
rebuilding that is going to be one of the critical elements,
not only for the Navy, but for the Nation. We are dedicated to
ensuring that's a key thing that we stay focused on, in all
regards.
Senator Blumenthal. I assume, Vice Admiral Moore, you would
agree.
But, I really want to emphasize that it's--and you folks do
a great job with training sailors. No question. But, the
private manufacturers and shipyards need the investment. In the
last budget, or in the one that's under consideration now, I
think there's $10 million that I asked to be inserted for
Electric Boat's training program. I think that, in future
years, that number has to be much bigger than it--than that $10
million, because the pipefitters, the welders, the
electricians, the folks who actually put submarines together,
they make the parts, they put those parts together, and they do
it very well. But, as you've said very well, we're losing a
generation.
Thank you.
Senator Perdue. Senator Sullivan.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just have one final question as, kind of, from the GAO
study, but then to the strategic level.
The GAO found that, since fiscal year 2014, the Navy fleet
all across the board has spent over 33,000 more days in
maintenance than expected. That seems--number's almost
incredible. That's 91 years of delay. If this is becoming so
commonplace that it seems to be something that we're building
into our operations, Mr. Secretary, Admiral, how can we be
advancing the strategic objectives outlined in the NDS with
this kind of challenge? Obviously the lost operational presence
in places like the South China Sea or the Mediterranean or the
Arctic is a huge negative impact. Does China have these
problems like we do, or are they just getting their fleet out
and about? How is this impacting our broader National Defense
Strategy?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I guess, from my perspective,
the past performance is unacceptable and unsustainable. That's
why you've seen, I think, such a large focus on the Navy,
particularly in the last 2 years, to look at this problem
holistically. As the GAO's indicated, it's a--you know, a
system of systems. There's lots of moving parts. We, in the
past, may not have looked at all of it holistically. It was
lots of little tribes, kind of, working in different elements.
I'm encouraged by the performance we've seen in the last 18
months, but I'm not satisfied. We have a long way to go to
ensure we can, kind of, get up on the pipeline we need and then
drive cost out of it.
Senator Sullivan. But, bottom line, this dramatically
undermines our ability to----
Secretary Geurts. Absolutely.
Senator Sullivan.--execute the National Defense Strategy
and reorient towards the Indo-Pacific.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir.
Senator Sullivan. Do you agree with that, Admiral?
Admiral Moore. Yes, sir, I agree with that.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
Senator Perdue. Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think that was a good analysis that Senator Sullivan did.
I hadn't done the math. But, 91 years of delay--delay is 91
years of these subs and ships not being in the water, doing the
mission that they do, which is not only defending the country,
but preserving open sea lanes, et cetera. If you think about it
as 91 years of mission loss, that really demonstrates why we
have to get on this.
A couple of questions for you, Ms. Maurer, really quickly.
On that first page that I quoted when I did my opening comment,
I just want to make sure I understand another piece that you
mentioned. At the bottom of the first page, What GAO Found:
``For example, the Navy estimates it will take 20 years to
improve the infrastructure at its shipyards.'' I am assuming
that that is a reference to the Shipyard Infrastructure
Optimization Program. Is that correct?
Ms. Maurer. That's correct, Senator.
Senator Kaine. That's the program--Secretary Geurts, in
your testimony, that's the 20-year, $21 billion program. Now,
that's your desire. You still have to get the funding from us,
right?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. We've got to request it, and
then it has to be supported.
Senator Kaine. In that $21 billion Shipyard Infrastructure
Optimization Program, a lot of that money is military
construction (MILCON) money, correct?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir.
Senator Kaine. For example, on your testimony, you talk
about examples of MILCON projects underway. My eye is drawn to
the Norfolk one of the four, but you talk about a new--you're
in negotiations to award a contract to build a new defueling
and inactivation complex that will replace a 25-year-old
facility. That's just an example of, at these shipyards, the
sorts of MILCON investments that are going to need to be made.
Secretary Geurts. Absolutely, sir. Part of the challenge
is, we've run these shipyards hard, and they were designed
many, many years ago, and they're not now optimized, as I'm
sure Senator Perdue, when he looked at it--that's not the way
you would set it up from scratch. So, we've got to not only
modernize it, but do it in a way where we can get efficiency
back into those shipyards.
Senator Kaine. Let me tell you another challenge you have.
So, one challenge is, a lot of this money that you need to
solve the problem that we're discussing today is MILCON money,
but another one is, there's a lot of competition for MILCON
money, right? I mean, we're talking about--we have to build new
hangars to deal with the F-35s that are coming online. We have
to repair Tyndall and Lejeune that got blitzed, you know, by
hurricanes in 2018. So, it's not exactly like MILCON projects
are just easy to get funding for, correct? The competition is
pretty intense.
Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir.
Senator Kaine. I'll just close by saying my colleagues and
I are really, really committed to having a MILCON budget that
is robust and that goes for the purpose for which it was
intended.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Perdue. I'm going to take you--the Chairman's
privilege and make a comment, because I want to follow up on
that. I think that's a very valid comment. I'm not surprised it
comes from the Senator. He is very thoughtful about these
issues. That is this, that I'm concerned, when we look at
Seapower as a Subcommittee, and Readiness, these two committees
overlap in so many ways. The one I'm concerned about is
allocation of total spending in the Department of Defense. We
spend about $760 billion. Fourteen percent of that is overhead.
I'd like to understand why that's up from 2 percent, just 40
years ago. The--but, the other 86 percent gets split in a
third, a third, a third. I've got two Navy people here today,
so I'm going to get a vested--I'm not asking a question, but I
want to make a point. The point is, the NDS--the allocation of
dollars in our budget for the DOD is not consistent in so many
ways. MILCON is one. But, the overall support of the NDS is not
there. It does--it's not consistent. The allocation of the
money is not consistent with NDS. That's something that we're
going to be looking at, from a Seapower Subcommittee
standpoint. So, I would welcome any input you guys have
specifically as it relates to NDS.
Senator King.
Senator King. No questions.
Senator Perdue. Senator Blumenthal, do you have another
followup?
Senator Blumenthal. No.
Senator Perdue. Anybody?
Well, I think we've worn the subject out. So----
First of all, Ms. Maurer, thank you for this report. This
is fascinating. I appreciate the objectivity and the
succinctness of it. It really helped us advance our education
of the--this issue. We'll be talking more.
But, Admiral, thank you for your service and your--both of
you, for your service and your focus on this. We know you're on
it. We see the improvement.
But, this has been a very enlightening hearing. Thank you
all for being here today and for your testimony.
Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:39 a.m., the Committee adjourned.]
[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Jim Inhofe
maritime dynamic over the horizon targeting system
1. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Geurts, I understand that your office
has been working on establishing a pilot program called the Maritime
Dynamic Over-the-Horizon Targeting System (MDOTS) that would satisfy an
essential capability gap for Over-the-Horizon (OTH) Naval Dynamic Time-
Sensitive-Target (TST) Targeting aboard Naval vessels, command nodes
and command ships to perform much faster kinetic and non-kinetic
engagements from ``sense-to-engage.'' The Navy has identified the USS
America as the desired platform for this pilot effort. Could you please
explain to the Committee the risks associated with any delay in this
effort and what not having this capability means to our warfighting
readiness.
Secretary Geurts. The Maritime Dynamic Over-the-Horizon time
sensitive Targeting System (MDOTS) is currently one of several options
that address the emergent need for a time sensitive target defeat
strategy. The Department of the Navy is continuing to evaluate this
concept and capability relative to requirements and warfighting needs.
Given that this area is such a critical capability for our warfighter,
the DON's evaluation needs to be comprehensive to ensure the Navy's
strategy is sustainable for the long term.
2. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Geurts, could you please detail how
the Navy intends to meet the timeline necessary for the USS America and
what resources have been identified to achieve this goal?
Secretary Geurts. MDOTS was not installed on the USS America in
fiscal year 2019. MDOTS is one of many possible technology solutions in
this capability set. As part of POM22 (Program Objective Memorandum
2022), all technologies in this capability set will be reviewed and
prioritized.
3. Senator Inhofe. Admiral Moore, could you please identify the
Navy entities involved in the execution of the MDOTS program and which
Navy Echelon 2 command has cognizance over this program? Furthermore,
this capability could have broad applicability across the Department,
including the Joint Strike Fighter Program. Who would serve as the Navy
integrator for other combat systems into MDOTS, NAVAIR or NAVSEA?
Admiral Moore. The Navy entities involved with MDOTS are NAVAIR,
NAVWAR, and NAVSEA. NAVSEA is the Echelon 2 command that will oversee
integration efforts.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Dan Sullivan
maintenance backlog
4. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Geurts, according to the Government
Accountability Office's (GAO's) report on the Navy's maintenance
delays, from fiscal year 2014 to fiscal year 2019, the Navy experienced
a total of 33,701 days of maintenance delays. What is the impact of
these maintenance delays on our ability to accomplish the strategic
objectives outlined in the 2018 National Defense Strategy?
Secretary Geurts. The on-time delivery of ships from maintenance
availabilities allows the Navy to accomplish the strategic objectives
outlined in the National Defense Strategy. Maintenance delays adversely
affect these objectives. That is why the Navy has spent considerable
time and resources and the use of data analytics to improve and
eliminate the maintenance delays we saw from 2014 to 2019. The Navy's
plan reduces those delays by 80 percent in fiscal year 2020 with a goal
of eliminating delays by 2021.
5. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Geurts, how do the maintenance
delays identified in the GAO report affect the ships--and associated
sailors and marines--that are not in a maintenance period and are
currently conducting operations?
Secretary Geurts. If maintenance delays consume planned operational
periods of ships, the remaining ships in the fleet must fulfill
operational requirements. This may require sailors and marines to
deploy for periods for time beyond what they originally planned. In
addition to impacts for sailors and marines, these maintenance
extensions negatively influence shipyard loading, which further
pressurizes the ship repair industry. The Navy is developing and
implementing better productivity metrics and leveraging data analytics
to close the gaps in shipyards performance. The Navy is focused on
efforts to reduce lost operational days due to ship depot availability
extensions by 80 percent in fiscal year 2020, as compared to fiscal
year 2019, and eliminate lost operational days through availability
extensions by the end of fiscal year 2021.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Josh Hawley
virginia-class submarines
6. Senator Hawley. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, I understand
the Navy underestimated demand for certain replacement parts needed to
maintain operational Virginia-class submarines, and as a result, you
had to divert parts from the Virginia-class new construction effort to
keep maintenance on schedule. I also understand that you are updating
your models for predicting demand for those and potentially other
replacement parts to avoid this situation in the future. Can you tell
us what you have done to improve your models for predicting demand for
replacement parts, and in particular, how your models account for the
fact that extended deployments by these assets could increase
maintenance requirements down the road?
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. The Navy has been working over
the last 2 years to develop an improved methodology for predicting
maintenance material requirements to support the Navy Stock System's
procurement strategy. The process is called Intelligent Forecast
(iForecast) and it utilizes a systems engineering approach for
integrating data from multiple disparate systems coupled with an
understanding of the underlying business processes. The Navy initially
focused on Attack Submarines (Seawolf (SSN 21), Los Angeles (SSN 688),
and Virginia (SSN 774) classes) undergoing Depot Level Maintenance.
Whereas the previous material forecasting model only predicted between
7 to 10 percent of the material required for a maintenance
availability, iForecast is projected to capture approximately 70
percent of the material requirements of future maintenance
availabilities. The iForecast team is working to not only improve the
system's accuracy, but also expand its capabilities to allow it to
support Intermediate Level Maintenance and lifecycle maintenance for
Ballistic Missile/Guided Missile Submarines (SSBN/SSGN 726).
Additionally, the team is working with the Aircraft Carrier and Surface
fleets and to foster partnerships within these communities. Extended
deployments are not expected to influence the type or volume of work
that is accomplished during depot availabilities and therefore should
not impact iForecast's ability to predict which components are required
for planned maintenance availabilities.
conventionally-powered surface ships
7. Senator Hawley. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, the Navy has
spent years working to overcome maintenance backlogs and restore the
material readiness of our conventionally-powered surface ships. When
can we expect our conventionally-powered surface ships to be fully
caught up on maintenance and material readiness?
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. The Navy uses the Life Cycle
Health Assessment (LCHA) tool to track a ship's class maintenance plan
health according to its material condition and deferred work it may
have in backlog. Fifty-four percent of U.S. Navy surface ships
currently have a satisfactory LCHA rating. Based on the maintenance
plan, the Navy is expected to achieve a 93 percent satisfactory rating
by fiscal year 2025 for surface ships, including 100 percent
satisfactory rating for all DDG 51 class ships, LHA/LHD class ships,
and LPD 17 class ships.
navy's supply chain security
8. Senator Hawley. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, I'd like to
understand how the Navy is thinking about supply chain security when it
comes to maintenance. For instance, let's say we are ordering parts
from a European company for a European-designed system installed on a
United States ship. How does the Navy track where that company is
getting its components, subcomponents, materials, and software, so we
do not end up buying these elements indirectly from sources with which
we'd rather not be associated?
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. Historically, by law and by
contract, the Navy's prime contractors are responsible for the
provenance of supply. That said, we recognize that the primes and the
Navy both have responsibility in executing supply chain security. There
are a number of efforts and controls in place to assess and mitigate
risks. For critical material applications (e.g., failure of material
may result in loss of life, loss of ship, inability to recover), there
are material control programs in place to minimize the risk of
receiving noncompliant material. These programs include Level I
Material Control Program, Deep Submergence Scope of Certification and
Fly-By-Wire. In the effort to prevent intrusion of counterfeit material
into our supply chain, NAVSEA has issued Counterfeit Materiel
Deterrence and Detection Policy and guidance to provide methods and
processes for managing and minimizing the risks of receiving
counterfeit materiel. Additionally, FAR and DFARs clauses are available
(e.g., FAR 4.21 Prohibition on Contracting for Certain
Telecommunications and Video Surveillance Services or Equipment, FAR
Part 25 Foreign Acquisition, DFARS 252.246-7007 Contractor Counterfeit
Electronic Part Detection and Avoidance System, DFARS 252.246-7008
Sources of Electronic Parts) to minimize the risks. Current efforts are
addressing how and where to focus Supply Chain Management efforts in
order to reduce the most significant risks. ASN RD&A has recently stood
up Supply Chain Managers at each PEO with the express mission of
working with the prime contractors to improve the health, security and
future viability of the overall Navy supply base. Example efforts
include supplier assessments, supply chain analytics, supplier audits
and visits (verification of contract requirements flow-down to sub-
tiers), quality data analysis, and monitoring to develop better insight
and information into the supply chain.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Richard Blumenthal
force structure assessment
9. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, in March, I asked you
about the decision to retire the USS Truman early and you stated it was
the result of ``hard tradeoffs.'' What are the consequences to ship
maintenance as a result of reversing the decision to retire the USS
Truman?
Secretary Geurts. Reversing the decision to retire USS Harry S.
Truman occurred prior to awarding the planning contract for the ship's
Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH) and therefore had no impact to
planned ship maintenance.
10. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, have you been providing
input to the Force Structure Assessment process to ensure it fully
accounts for sustainment costs of the future force?
Secretary Geurts. I have been working closely with Department
leadership on the Force Structure Assessment to evaluate the long-term
ability of the industrial base to design, build, and sustain the future
naval force and the total cost of that force. The Navy's Maintenance
and Modernization Plan will establish the framework to effectively
sustain our investments in today's fleet and the future force and
ensure the plan can be executed by the U.S. shipbuilding and supplier
industrial base.
11. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, are you able to provide
an update from the Navy on the status of the Force Structure
Assessment, and when you plan to release it publicly?
Secretary Geurts. The Navy and Marine Corps have finished the
initial work on the Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment. On
February 27, 2020, the Secretary of Defense directed a DOD-level
comprehensive review and analysis of the Navy's future fleet force
structure. Additional wargames, simulations, and detailed analyses will
be conducted over the coming months, with results of this rigorous
analysis due back to the Secretary of Defense in the summer.
12. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, will you commit to making
the Force Structure Assessment unclassified and public, to the maximum
extent possible?
Secretary Geurts. The Secretary of Defense and Department of the
Navy intend to be transparent with Congress regarding the methods,
progress, and results of this assessment.
private shipyard maintenance
13. Senator Blumenthal. Ms. Maurer, can you elaborate on why you
believe the Navy's 2023 timeline for eliminating submarine maintenance
backlogs is based on ``optimistic assumptions?''
Ms. Maurer. According to the Navy's workload management plan issued
in December 2018, its reduction in submarine maintenance backlog was
predicated in part on successful implementation of various actions and
initiatives to improve maintenance timeliness, as well as outsourcing
two additional submarine availabilities to the private sector. \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Secretary of the Navy, Report to Congress on Submarine Depot
Maintenance, December 27, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As we noted in our November 2019 report, the success of the Navy's
workload management plan depends on the shipyards (both public and
private) and the Navy realizing improvements in their performance
stemming from several ongoing actions and initiatives that they have
not yet demonstrated. \2\ Specifically, we identified two key
optimistic assumptions in the plan that could play a role in keeping
the Navy from meeting its backlog reduction goal. First, the workload
plan states that on-time completion of submarine maintenance, at both
the public and private shipyards, is critical to eliminating submarine
idle time and the submarine maintenance backlog. However, this
assumption may not be realistic in light of recent performance at
public and private shipyards. On average, the public shipyards have
completed maintenance on time only about 26 percent of the time between
fiscal years 2007 and 2017. Further, of the three submarine maintenance
periods that were allocated to the private shipyards between fiscal
years 2015 and 2018, all three will be completed more than a year late,
according to Navy data as of November 2019. Until the shipyards
demonstrate sustained improvement in their performance, as the Navy
anticipates, we consider this assumption to be an optimistic one.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ GAO, Naval Shipyards: Key Actions Remain to Improve
Infrastructure to Better Support Navy Operations. GAO-20-64. November
25, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second, some of the maintenance anticipated in the plan will only
be possible with the completion of certain dry dock projects, such as
the multi-mission dry dock at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. However,
construction projects can face delays, and those delays could further
slow the Navy's repairs. In addition, the Navy plans to fund its dry
dock projects using future military construction funds, which are
subject to competing budgetary demands. Without those funds, the
projects themselves would not begin on time, likely placing the Navy's
2023 goal out of reach.
14. Senator Blumenthal. Ms. Maurer, do you believe the Navy's 5-
year forecast for depot maintenance could have been more realistic if
it included more outsourcing to private shipyards?
Ms. Maurer. The extent to which the Navy increases the use of
private shipyards depends on several factors, most notably available
capacity, including competing ship construction and ship maintenance
priorities.
The Navy currently repairs most of its surface fleet at private
shipyards, and most of its nuclear submarines at public shipyards. In
deciding where to send a given availability, the Navy weighs cost and
schedule factors, as well as the impacts to the construction of new
ships and the effect on the industrial base. The Navy is somewhat
limited by the number of private shipyards authorized to perform
nuclear submarine maintenance. My team has spoken with representatives
from private shipyards, who stated they can currently support two
submarine maintenance availabilities--one each at two locations--
without disrupting their ship construction work. We also note that all
three of submarine maintenance periods that the Navy allocated to
private shipyards between fiscal years 2015 and 2018 will be completed
at least a year late, according to Navy data as of November 2019.
Representatives from the private shipyards stated that they believe the
cost and schedule challenges faced on previous availabilities would
improve as they gain experience and, if they were to receive steady
maintenance work from the Navy and make additional investments. Given
these limits at the private yards, it would not necessarily make the
forecast more realistic to include additional private sector
availabilities.
15. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, do you believe there is
long-term value in retaining submarine maintenance proficiency in the
private shipyards?
Secretary Geurts. Retaining submarine maintenance proficiency in
the private shipyards can mitigate short-term gaps in workforce
availabilities, but it also provides a long-term value to the Navy. The
Navy engages in a regular dialogue with our industry partners to
identify risks and opportunities to enhance performance. Since 2015,
four submarine availabilities have been assigned to the private sector
with the intent to better balance workload across the industrial base.
Another maintenance evolution is in the proposal evaluation phase with
Electric Boat for the USS Hartford (SSN 768) fiscal year 2021
Engineering Overhaul. In the longer term, the Navy will improve public
and private sector surge capacity through a more stable and predictable
private sector workload that incentivizes the private sector to
establish the required capacity to support the Navy's submarine
workload posture. Navy is developing a 10-year private sector submarine
depot maintenance workload plan and acquisition strategy that leverages
government and private sector partnerships to improve private sector
submarine availability execution, incentivize private sector hiring and
investment, and sustain a proficient and surge-capable workforce across
the submarine/carrier industrial base. Leveraging the private sector in
the Navy's long-term maintenance plan will also reduce the impact of
infrastructure modernization at the naval shipyards.
16. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, do you plan to continue
outsourcing occasional maintenance overhauls to private shipyards to
maintain private yard core competency and ease infrastructure strain at
public yards during the long infrastructure modernization?
Secretary Geurts. Yes. Navy is developing a 10-year private sector
submarine depot maintenance workload plan and acquisition strategy that
leverages government and private sector partnerships to improve private
sector submarine availability execution, incentivize private sector
hiring and investment, and sustain a proficient and surge-capable
workforce across the submarine/carrier industrial base. Leveraging the
private sector in the Navy's long-term maintenance plan will also
reduce the infrastructure modernization churn at the naval shipyards.
17. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, I was encouraged to see
in your testimony the stated goal of awarding all maintenance contracts
120 days prior--vice the standard 60 days--to the start of an
availability. What are the current barriers to achieving this goal?
Secretary Geurts. The barriers to achieving A-120 Awards include
funding limitations created by Continuing Resolutions--The quarterly
distribution of Operations & Maintenance, Navy (OMN) funding during a
continuing resolution can create artificial funding scarcities that can
delay contract awards. The largest barrier is that the Navy does not
have incremental funding or advanced procurement authority to fund ship
availabilities. Congress stipulated in Public Law 97-114, the
Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1982, that ``
. . . funds current at the start of a major availability must finance
the cost of the modernization or repair, including all scope of effort
changes necessary to complete it.'' The requirement to fund ``all scope
of effort'' at award presents a barrier to A-120 award in instances
where Ship Availability Start dates are in different fiscal years than
the A-120 contract award date.
workforce development
18. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, should the Navy share
responsibility with the private shipyards to develop a skilled and
experienced submarine workforce?
Secretary Geurts. The Navy remains focused on ensuring the on-time
delivery of ships and submarines to the fleet. To that end, the Navy,
through direct engagement between the public Naval Shipyards and the
private sector, continues to collaborate with the private shipyards to
develop a skilled submarine maintenance workforce. Some of the ways
we're doing this is by hosting workers from private shipyards at our
facilities so they can observe how we execute certain types of work;
conducting lessons-learned meetings following the completion of
availabilities; sharing how the Navy plans major submarine
availabilities; and providing technical advice and guidance to both
contractors in the performance of their awarded work.
19. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, how do you envision
operationalizing this workforce development partnership? Are you
collaborating with private industry to create a joint workforce
development strategy?
Secretary Geurts. Yes, the Navy is collaborating with private
industry to build submarine maintenance capacity through workforce
development across the public and private sectors. The public Naval
Shipyards (NSYs) directly engage the private nuclear shipyards on
workforce development in a number of ways. Example of this
collaboration including having them in our ``hot washes,'' which are
reviews of a problems faced during recent availabilities designed to
address issues so we don't face them again in the future; inviting them
to Communities of Practice (CoP) events to learn NSY best practices for
teaching skill sets crucial to the development of the shipyard
workforce; sharing how we plan availabilities to help them more closely
align their planning methodologies with the Navy's; and our shipyards
provide technical advise and guidance to private shipyards on their
maintenance work. Currently, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) is
collaborating with Electric Boat to prepare for the USS Hartford (SSN
768) Engineered Overhaul (EOH) by providing planning documents from
previous Los Angeles-class EOHs and other documents related to Los
Angeles-class repairs. Additionally, PNSY is also working with EB to
establish a series of site visits to observe work, facilitate
knowledge-sharing and discuss technical assessments.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Mazie K. Hirono
ship repair industry workload
20. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, the Navy
has publicly stated for some time now that the ship repair industry
requires the long-term predictable and sustainable work load to secure
the skilled work force and make the investments that the Navy expects
of them to maintain the future Navy. The ``bundling'' efforts thus far
appear to have fallen short of their intended effects. What actions can
the Navy take to ensure a long-term predictable workload?
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. The Navy is committed to
working with industry to provide a stable and predictable workload in a
competitive environment so industry can hire and make investments to
maintain and modernize the Navy's growing fleet. The Department is
approaching the ship repair industrial base with an integrated
enterprise plan for private shipyards to anticipate total workload and
better understand and predict the marketplace. The method for
contracting that workload is evolving to provide long term workload
predictability by grouping ship availabilities both horizontally and
vertically to provide longer term predictability to incentivize
industry to grow the needed capacity. Vertical groupings for ships with
similar start dates will include multiple overlapping availabilities
within a single solicitation. Horizontal groupings for ship
availabilities occurring in a series will include multiple sequential
availabilities within a single solicitation. The Navy awarded the first
three-ship vertical grouping contract in February 2019 for USS Arleigh
Burke (DDG 51), USS Bulkeley (DDG 84), and USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44).
The Navy also awarded availabilities for USS Decatur (DDG 73) and USS
Stethem (DDG 63) via a vertically grouped solicitation enabling the
first double docking of DDGs in San Diego allowing the Navy to more
efficiently utilize dry dock space. The first horizontally grouped
contract was awarded in September 2019 to Vigor Marine, LLC, for USS
Chosin (CG 65) and USS Cape St. George (CG 71), providing stability to
the workload in the Pacific Northwest. By awarding multiple ``bundled
availabilities'', industry receives a backlog of work that creates
stability for a healthy, efficient industrial base. The Navy has
received positive feedback from industry on bundling as a way to
provide stable and predictable work, and is working to increase the
percentage of availabilities that are bundled.
ship modernization cost estimate
21. Senator Hirono. Ms. Maurer, your report found the Navy's
shipyard modernization plan cost estimate is likely underestimated due
to the methodology used. If the Navy took all of your recommendations
into account for completing its estimates, what would your rough
estimate be for the actual cost of the shipyard modernization plan?
Ms. Maurer. We cannot provide a specific cost estimate because the
Navy has yet to fully develop and document the necessary information in
a manner consistent with the GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide.
As we noted in our November 2019 report, including inflation in the
estimate could increase the overall cost by as much as 45 percent,
depending in part on when the Navy makes its planned investments. \3\
Navy investments earlier in the 20-year process would be subject to
less inflationary increase than investments made later in the 20-year
process. We also noted that the Navy should include additional costs to
provide a full and complete estimate, such as those for roads,
utilities, and environmental remediation, among others. Precise costs
for these elements will depend greatly on the specific improvements
that the Navy decides to pursue. Officials from the Navy's shipyard
optimization program office told us that they plan to develop a more
precise cost estimate once they have completed their modeling and
simulation efforts and identified a specific list of improvements.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ GAO-20-64.
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The Navy agreed with our recommendation to improve their cost
estimate for the shipyard optimization plan, and we will continue to
follow up with them on their implementation efforts.
ship crew levels
22. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, what steps
has the Navy taken to evaluate its crew requirements and the length of
the standard Navy workweek, and ensure that the right number of crew
are available to meet the mission?
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. In November 2018, Navy
completed an extensive assessment of the Navy's Operational Afloat
Workweek, previously called the Navy Standard Workweek. The study
included over 5,000 enlisted sailor interviews across 18 ships, two
submarines, 15 afloat aviation squadrons and six expeditionary staffs.
Based on the assessment, Navy updated the Navy Availability Factor,
which defines overall time sailors are available to perform work during
at-sea operations. The update decreased the Productive Availability
Factor (PAF) that covers time sailors are available for watchstanding,
maintenance, and other activities from 70 hours per week to 67 hours
per week. The Navy implemented the new Navy Availability Factor for use
in all future Fleet Manpower Requirements Determination studies
effective January 19, 2019. In 2018, Navy began formally including
inport workload in all surface ship manpower requirements determination
studies. This transitioned the Navy's Fleet manpower model from a
wartime/at-sea only model to a more comprehensive operational manpower
model. Expanding the scope of ship manpower studies provides visibility
to all shipboard operational work and underwrites the determination of
the right number of manpower requirements to meet the mission. Also in
2018, Navy implemented a structured review of all workhour time
allowances and factors used in calculating Fleet manpower requirements.
These time allowances and factors add time to documented workhours to
account for work conditions and environments that are outside of the
sailors control and directly influence the sailors ability to complete
the work. The allowances and factors ensure the Fleet Manpower
Requirements Determination Model accounts for all sailor work.
23. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, how long
will it take the Navy to reassess the required crew sizes for the
entire fleet?
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. Navy is on-track to deliver a
comprehensive reassessment and determination of ship manpower
requirements by the end of fiscal year 2024. At that time, Navy will
have integrated inport workload and implemented a new 67 hours per week
Productive Availability Factor into all ship manpower requirements
documents. These enhancements directly contribute to the assessment of
total ship work and the determination of ship manpower requirements
across the entire Fleet.
24. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, how many
sailors will this add to the Navy's ships?
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. Navy employs a uniform Fleet
Manpower Requirements Determination Model to establish the minimum
manpower requirements needed to execute the Fleet mission successfully.
The FMRD Program covers over 208,000 military manpower requirements,
which represents 43 percent of the Navy's total military manpower
requirements profile. From fiscal year 2018 through December 2019, Navy
has added approximately 3,130 new military manpower requirements to 62
Destroyers (DDG-51 class), two Hospital Ships (T-AH-9 class), the USS
Mount Whitney (LCC 20), 10 Landing Platform Dock ships (LPD-17 class),
and two Amphibious Assault ships (LHA-6 class). The Fleet Manpower
Requirements Determination Model delivers manpower requirements to
Navy's Resource Sponsors to develop funding allocation strategies by
warfare area. Manpower requirements then compete for funding along with
many operational requirements.
25. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, after the
Navy updates the required size of its crews, how long will it take for
the Navy to actually assign the right number of crew members to its
ships?
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. Manning of Navy ships is in
accordance with the manning priorities set by Fleet Commanders and the
Navy's Optimized Fleet Response Plan. Once a determination is made
about the required size of ships crews, these billets will become part
of the normal distribution manning plan that detailers and placement
officers use to match sailor's experience and ratings with the job
descriptions. Normally the distribution process takes 6 months to 1
year based on availability of qualified sailors who are transferring to
a new duty location.
26. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, during the
interim, how will the Navy prevent undersized crews from negatively
affecting the maintenance of its ships?
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. The Navy Maintenance community
is increasing the amount of Intermediate-Level maintenance that can be
performed by sailor while underway and also improving sailor training
and certification so there are more qualified individuals capable of
executing such maintenance. This will improve the material condition of
ships in the Fleet, while also ensuring that crews have the ability to
keep their systems operating and potentially respond to battle damage,
which is essential when ships are operating in harm's way. As a result
of the Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force Readiness, the Navy
reestablished I-Level Maintenance as a competency of the Regional
Maintenance Centers (RMCs) and directed the RMCs to increase Active
Duty personnel by 1,587 sailors in the Fleet Concentration Areas. The
Navy now has 2,100 sailors supporting ship repairs and gaining valuable
hands-on maintenance experience. Through execution of production work,
these sailors participate in the Navy Afloat Maintenance Training
Strategy program where they enter as apprentices and graduate with
certifications as journeymen in one of 21 trade disciplines available
for them across the RMCs. When they return to sea duty, they have the
knowledge, skills, and ability to execute routine and emergent
maintenance. Trained sailors who have the right technical documents,
tools, and industrial plant equipment onboard are able to accomplish
overhaul and repair of pumps, valves, engines, and motors and execute
some welding work, as well as a significant amount of preventative
maintenance. By developing journeyman skills, the Navy is developing
the workforce necessary to conduct deep maintenance at sea and reduce
the amount of contracting maintenance work.
implementation of gao recommendations
27. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, what is the
status of implementation of each of the recommendations from the GAO
report?
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. The Department of the Navy
(DON) provides periodic updates to Navy Audit Service on outstanding
GAO recommendations. Navy Audit Service is the repository for responses
to all GAO recommendations to the DON.
What follows are the formal responses to the select GAO
recommendations with supplemental information about responses to the
recommendations.
1. Status of Recommendations from Military Depots: Actions Needed
to Improve Poor Conditions of Facilities and Equipment That Affect
Maintenance Timeliness and Efficiency:
Recommendation 1: The Secretary of the Navy should
ensure that Naval Sea Systems Command and the Commander, Fleet
Readiness Centers establish measures for their depots to track facility
or equipment conditions that lead to maintenance delays.
Answer:
- Detailed metrics will follow the Shipyard Infrastructure
Optimization Program (SIOP) Phase II modeling and simulation at the
Naval Shipyards. This modeling and simulation will map all current and
optimized submarine and CVN depot maintenance processes, to identify
inefficiencies and outages resulting from poor infrastructure material
condition and impacts to availability execution and duration.
- These integrated simulations (digital twin) will enable
viewing of changing layouts and processes on naval shipyard performance
metrics and throughput in a digital environment. The digital twin will
allow the Navy to evaluate options to minimize negative impacts to the
shipyard mission during the SIOP.
- Scheduled completion dates for modeling and simulation
digital twins are 4th quarter fiscal year 2021 for Pearl Harbor Naval
Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility, 2nd quarter fiscal year
2022 for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Faculty,
and 3rd quarter fiscal year 2022 for Norfolk Naval Shipyard and
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
In addition to the information included in the record information
maintained by Navy Audit Service, the Navy facility readiness is
indicated by the infrastructure figure of merit (IFOM) rating. The IFOM
rating provides an indicator of the facility resource availability
(condition, configuration, and capacity). As SIOP progresses through
Phase II, the digital twins and Area Development Plans will provide
additional information to measure facility conditions. The outcome of
these efforts will be a system to develop, validate, and maintain a
digital model of the current shipyard system, including facilities,
equipment, personnel, and work processes, and to simulate impacts that
workload and system variations would have on shipyard key performance
parameters (KPP).
This effort is a collaboration between NAVSEA's Shipyard
Infrastructure Optimization Program Office (PMS-555), OASD(M&R) and the
National Center for Manufacturing Sciences.
Recommendation 2: The Secretary of the Navy should
ensure that Naval Sea Systems Command and the Commander, Fleet
Readiness Centers implement tracking of the measures for identifying
when facility or equipment conditions lead to maintenance delays at
each Navy depot.
Answer:
- Detailed metrics will follow the Shipyard Infrastructure
Optimization Program (SIOP) Phase II modeling and simulation at the
Naval Shipyards. This modeling and simulation will map all current and
optimized submarine and CVN depot maintenance processes to identify
inefficiencies and outages resulting from poor infrastructure material
condition and impacts to availability execution and duration.
- These integrated simulations (digital twin) will enable
viewing of changing layouts and processes on naval shipyard performance
metrics and throughput in a digital environment. The digital twin will
allow the Navy to evaluate options to minimize negative impacts to the
shipyard mission during the SIOP.
- Scheduled completion dates for modeling and simulation
digital twins are 4th quarter fiscal year 2021 for Pearl Harbor Naval
Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility, 2nd quarter fiscal year
2022 for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Faculty,
and 3rd quarter fiscal year 2022 for Norfolk Naval Shipyard and
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
2. Status of Recommendation from DOD Depot Workforce: Services Need
to Assess the Effectiveness of Their Initiatives to Maintain Critical
Skills
Recommendation 1: The Secretary of the Navy, in
conjunction with the Naval Sea Systems Command and Naval Air Systems
Command, should assess the effectiveness of the Navy's shipyards' and
fleet readiness centers' hiring, training, and retention programs.
Answer:
- The Naval shipyards (NSY) in fiscal year 2018 and fiscal
year 2019 demonstrated their ability to successfully achieve their
fiscal year hiring goals. For external hires, the timeline from job
offer to onboard date ranges from 6 to 9 months, and the NSYs were able
to meet their goals by changing their traditional hiring practices and
job fair team structures. The NSYs have streamlined their job fair
hiring process by utilizing direct and expedited hiring authorities and
increasing their team membership to include the Navy's Operations
Center, Human Resources, Fleet Human Resources Office and Personnel
Security, which has significantly reduced onboarding times.
Additionally, the NSYs have increased participation in job fairs during
each fiscal year and have increased advertising efforts to attract
applicants. Through these efforts, the NSY's have grown their workforce
from 26,588 in fiscal year 2010 to 36,100 by fiscal year 2018, one year
ahead of the planned schedule.
- The Naval Shipyards (NSY) have transformed the training
and development of shipyard employees by investing in and increasing
the use of learning centers to train new apprentices in a ``safe to
learn'' environment. This approach has reduced the time it takes for a
new hire to become a productive worker at the NSYs by 50 percent.
Furthermore, the NSYs have improved their implementation of Naval
Shipyard Training and Education Program processes that allow them to
measure the effectiveness of their training program.
- The Naval Shipyards (NSY) have enacted various retention
incentives for critical and hard-to-fill positions in an effort to
preserve a highly skilled and experienced workforce. After a 15-year
decrease in workforce experience levels due to retirements and ramped
up hiring efforts, the declining experience level has stabilized and is
now starting to increase. For example, at the start of fiscal year
2018, 57 percent of the workforce at the NSYs had less than 5 years of
experience. Due to successful retention efforts, that statistic has now
decreased to 40 percent of the workforce at the NSYs with less than 5
years of experience. Navy will continue to assess attrition rates and
make full use of available recruitment and retention initiatives to
maintain a quality, experienced workforce.
3. Status of Recommendation from Navy Readiness: Actions Needed to
Address Costly Maintenance Delays Facing the Attack Submarine Fleet
Recommendation 1: The Secretary of the Navy should
ensure that the Chief of Naval Operations conducts a business case
analysis to inform maintenance workload allocation across public and
private shipyards; this analysis should include an assessment of
private shipyard capacity to perform attack submarine maintenance, and
should incorporate a complete accounting of both (a) the costs and
risks associated with attack submarines sitting idle, and (b) the
qualitative benefits associated with having the potential to both
mitigate risk in new submarine construction and provide additional
availability to the combatant commanders.
Answer:
- NAVSEA initiated a business case analysis that informed
the President's Budget 2021 budget process. The Navy will continue to
balance the workload between the public and private sector to maintain
a healthy industrial base for submarine maintenance.
4. Status of Recommendations from Naval Shipyards: Actions Needed
to Improve Poor Conditions That Affect Operations
Recommendation 1: The Secretary of the Navy should
develop a comprehensive plan for shipyard capital investment that
establishes (1) the desired goal for the shipyards' condition and
capabilities; (2) an estimate of the full costs to implement the plan,
addressing all relevant requirements, external risk factors, and
associated planning costs; and (3) metrics for assessing progress
toward meeting the goal that include measuring the effectiveness of
capital investments.
Answer:
- The table on the following page shows the status of
actions taken, underway, and planned in response to Recommendation 1.
In addition, Phase II, through modeling and simulation that will create
a digital twin of each shipyard along with the development of the Area
Development Plans, will provide appropriate metrics to assess risks to
SIOP costs estimates and the progress of its implementation schedule.
These metrics will lead to fewer mandays and reduced availability
durations, which will return operational availability (AO) to the
fleet.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimated Actual Measure(s) Capturing
Key Corrective Actions Completion Dates Completion Date Demonstrated Results Clarifying Comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Industrial Optimization February 2018 February 2018 February 2018 Report to
Study Navy's Shipyard Congress frames SIOP as
Optimized Infrastructure a $21 billion program,
Plan (SIOP) is a three- funded over 20 years
phased program to
provide appropriate
infrastructure
supporting the optimized
shipyard operations
through the 21st
Century.
Phase I was completed
when the February 2018
Report to Congress was
delivered, which
outlines the process to
build the Navy's future
shipyards.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phase II is underway and May 2022 Underway now. Completion of digital Comprehensive plan
will complete in May twins and Area (Phase II) development
2022 with detailed Area Development Plans (ADPs) is underway: - Phase II
Development Plans for for each shipyard. informed President's
all four public Budget 2021 and will
shipyards. Process inform subsequent POM
produces a digital twin cycles. - Identify
of each shipyard and policy and regulatory
optimizes the relief opportunities
infrastructure required.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phase III is execution of September 2048 Will start when - Integrated priority
the plans over 20 years. Phase II list of projects
completes developed. - Production
efficiency ROM
refined. - Investment
ROM refined
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recommendation 2: The Secretary of the Navy should
conduct regular management reviews that include all relevant
stakeholders to oversee implementation of the plan, review metrics,
assess the progress made toward the goal, and make adjustments, as
necessary, to ensure that the goal is attained.
Answer: The table below shows the status of actions
taken, underway, and planned in response to Recommendation 2. In
addition, SIOP is in the process of completing a Requirements and
Resources Review Board to analyze program requirements with senior Navy
staff up to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimated Actual Measure(s) Capturing
Key Corrective Actions Completion Dates Completion Date Demonstrated Results Clarifying Comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stand up initial August 7, 2017 August 7, 2017 Organization and charter Team and charter
governance organization. established. established prior to
kickoff of Phase I.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meetings on periodic Ongoing. Progress assessed and Periodic reviews as
basis (biannual). guidance provided as warranted by stage of
necessary development and upcoming
milestone deliverables.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revise governance March 1, 2018 September 28, Organization and charter
organization. 2018 revised. ASN (RD&A)
refined the governance
and update schedule by
formal memorandum. This
governance continues to
guide the SIOP.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bi-annual meeting held October 28, 2019 October 28, Information Semi-annual meeting will
with all key 2019 synchronization with key be scheduled by ASN
stakeholders utilizing stakeholders to update (RD&A)'s office
updated governance. This progress and upcoming
structure is the end- actions
state for the update
structure.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recommendation 3: The Secretary of the Navy should
provide regular reporting to key decision makers and Congress on the
progress the shipyards are making to meet the goal of the comprehensive
plan, along with any challenges that hinder that progress, such as
cost. This may include reporting on progress to reduce their facilities
restoration and modernization backlogs, improve the condition and
configuration of the shipyards, and recapitalize capital equipment.
Answer: The table below shows the status of actions
taken, underway, and planned in response to Recommendation 3. In
addition, as SIOP rolls out, regular meetings within Navy are held at
least on a quarterly basis and as the budget rolls out, SIOP is working
with Navy Office of Legislative Affairs to schedule quarterly or
periodic meetings to update congressional staff.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimated Actual Measure(s) Capturing
Key Corrective Actions Completion Dates Completion Date Demonstrated Results Clarifying Comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President's Budget 2019 February 2018 Status of plan
Budget rollout to SASC, development and shipyard
SAC, HASC and HAC investment.
committee staff.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Naval Shipyard February 1, 2018 Report completed. Phase I work will inform
Modernization Report to the Report to Congress.
Congress for SAC-M.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Naval Shipyard March 1, 2018 Report completed. Phase I work will inform
Development Plans Report the Report to Congress.
to Congress for HASC.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President's Budget 2020, February 2019 Status of plan progress,
2021, 2022, 2023, etc. February 2020 metrics and shipyard
Budget rollout to SASC, February 2021 investment details.
SAC, HASC and HAC February 2022
committee staff.
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