An Approach to Life-Cycle Management of Shipboard Equipment

📖 The Scoop

Navy ships are a combination of different systems and pieces of equipment, ranging from hull structure to tankage to individual components of combat systems. All these common shipboard equipment (CSE) systems have maintenance, training, and supply requirements, some of which are known and some of which arise unexpectedly. Navy processes for managing these system life cycles are not efficiently organized and result in seams between ships in new construction and those already in service. The authors review and assess the life-cycle management (LCM) of CSE installed on U.S. Navy ships and recommend steps to improve the readiness of this equipment, increase its efficiency, and reduce sustainment costs. Focusing on the connection between CSE and its LCM, the authors consider the relationship between Program Executive Office Ships and Naval Sea Systems Command and how that relationship affects the installation, use, repair, and replacement of CSE. After analyzing the in-service LCM trends in sustainment and new construction of several specific classes of surface ships, the authors identify three areas in which organizational processes hinder mustering a cohesive response to effective LCM for CSE: data reporting and compatibility; funding and incentive structures; and lack of a common command perspective. The authors recommend that the Navy generate and enforce common data standards across the whole of the enterprise, move away from the Program Objective Memorandum as a centerpiece of process and decisionmaking, and install a common superior who can adjudicate the programs and proposals of multiple naval divisions and departments.

Genre: History / Military / Naval (fancy, right?)