The Navy's Ship Design Factory: NAVSEA-The 'Golden Goose'

摘要

What do "factory" and the "Golden Goose" fable have to do with ship design and the Navy? The well-known Aesop fable of killing the Golden Goose accentuates the folly of a short-sighted action that destroys a unique asset- a lesson just as relevant today. In our paper the asset we describe is the "Ship Design Factory" led by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) and its predecessor organizations which designed the World Wars I and II fleets (Kuehn, 2008) and the Cold War fleet. For many decades the Navy mitigated the enormous number of uncertainties associated with complex warships and ensured their timely design and construction by adopting a marked different acquisition strategy than other weapon systems. We will describe the time-tested Office of the Chief of aval Operators(OPNAV) user-driven, NAVSEA-led ship design acquistion strategy, NAVSEA's leadership in developing naval ship design capabilities, and Navy-industry collaborative relationships which culminated in the successful buildup to the 600-ship Navy.The "Golden Goose", however, was all but destroyed in the 1990s under the banner of Acquisition Reform following the end of the Cold War. The argument that "warships are different" fell on deaf ears. The Navy's 1200-plus staff of highly experienced naval engineers at NAVSEA was cut by over 75% and industry assumed more and more responsibility for all ship design. "Failure" is not too strong a word to characterize the results of this twenty-five-year experiment (Fox, 2011). The U.S. has expended nationally-significant treasure and irreplaceable time to develop and field a number of warships poorly suited to effectively and/or efficiently meet the defense challenges of coming decades. At the recent 2019 Surface Navy Association meeting, the Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) accentuated the sense of urgency that the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) has been emphasizing (Clark, 2017) time is the one resource we do not have. SECNAV also stressed the importance of ensuring we use the resources we have to significantly increase the return-on-investment (ROI) for both warfighting effectiveness and efficiency.But the "Golden Goose" is not dead. We will describe the many strategic initiatives taken over the past twentyfive years by the leadership of NAVSEA, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division (NSWCCD) that revived and has sustained the Navy's in-house early stage ship design capabilities. To meet the urgency of the Navy's senior leaders, we will examine why we use the term "design factory," by approaching the ship design and constructMn proces as a manufacturing process where we can exploit tools ind'concepts such as the Just-In-Time (JIT) and Lean manufacturing revolution which has dramatically decreased factor cycle times, reduced in-process inventories and increased ROI.Finally, we will describe a proposed "21st Century Warship Design, Manufacturing, and Acquisition Strategy" that builds on NAVSEA and industry's core capabilities as well as best practice for the design and acquisition of complex engineered products. The strategy includes an Integrated Product Team (IPT) for early-stage design; a Robust Contract Design package; a modern Warship Manufacturing Strategy; early shipbuilder, combat system integrator, and propulsion system integrator engagement; and, a Flag Level Executive Review Board. We conclude the single most critical capability that will allow the NAVSEA "Golden Goose" to continue to produce the "Golden Eggs" of timely, technically feasible, basic warship designs that meet the OPNAV user-driven needs is sustaining a wellspring of highly experienced ship design engineers at NAVSEA, NSWCCD and the other Warfare Centers and their collaborative relationship with industry.