The Navy has spent billions to improve performance at its four shipyards in recent years, but even with the financial boost they continue to face substantial maintenance delays that hinder the combat readiness of America’s submarines and aircraft carriers, according to a just-released report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Critical maintenance work on subs and carriers was late 75 percent of the time from 2015-2019 at the Navy shipyards in Norfolk, Va.; Portsmouth, Maine; Puget Sound, Wash., and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Navy spent $2.8 billion during that same period to address shipyard performance issues, among other concerns.
Workforce performance and capacity — having enough personnel on hand to carry out the work — were the main factors the GAO investigators identified as causing the maintenance delays. Extra work identified after the initial maintenance plans were identified and approved, GAO officials said, also contributed more than 4,100 days of maintenance delays.
“Unplanned work also contributed to the Navy’s 36 percent underestimation of the personnel resources necessary to perform maintenance,” GAO investigators said in their report.
The investigators visited all four shipyards, reviewed maintenance records for 2015 through 2019 and met with Navy and shipyard officials before compiling their GAO report. The four public shipyards carry out critical maintenance projects on the Navy’s entire nuclear fleet. Concerns about shipyard maintenance delays come as the Trump Administration aligns the defense shift to “great power competition” with aggressive nations like China and Russia and a focus on the Indo-Pacific region where the Navy is expected to take the larger role.
While the Navy has taken steps in the right direction, it has not fully addressed the unplanned work and workforce factors that are causing most of the maintenance delays at their four shipyards, the investigators said.
They credited the Navy with updating planning documents to improve maintenance estimates but noted that it may take several years to determine whether the changes improve results. They said the Navy has “consistently” relied on high levels of overtime to carry out even planned work. Government analysts discovered overtime figures of 25 to 32 percent at some shipyard production shops from 2015 to 2019 with peak overtime as high as 45 percent.
“Shipyard officials told us that production shops at all four shipyards are working beyond their capacity,” GAO investigators said. “Overtime at such rates has been noted as resulting in diminished productivity.”
In 2018, the Navy instituted a “Shipyard Performance to Plan” initiative to address unplanned work and workforce factors. But, the GAO investigators say it still falls short to address the systemic problems at the Navy’s four shipyards.
It “does not include goals, milestones and a monitoring process along with fully-developed metrics to address unplanned work and workforce weaknesses,” they said.
The three recommendations resulting from the investigation include avoiding the consistent use of overtime by updating workforce planning requirements; completing the development of shipyard performance metrics and implementing workforce goals and milestones.
“The Navy concurred with all these recommendations,” GAO officials said.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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