NAVSEA Launches 'One Shipyard' Communications Initiative
NAVSEA News Wire
Release Date: 6/6/2003
By Shirley Copeland, Naval Sea Systems Command Public Affairs
WASHINGTON -- The civilian, military and contract employees who work together in maintaining the Navy's ships and submarines are no strangers to hard work. They are behind the scenes toiling in grease and heat, welding, repairing shafts, crawling in nooks and crannies, creating a level of professionalism that compliments the awesome power of the ships they maintain. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) recently instituted a new communication initiative, "One Shipyard for the Nation," which pays tribute to the work these individuals perform.
The "One Shipyard" communications initiative was kicked-off at the 2003 Sea Air and Space Expo, as a gallery-style photo display representing Naval Shipyard workers in their work environments. The images provide an opportunity to educate the public on the work of "The American Shipyard Worker."
"One Shipyard for the Nation" is a concept that's time has come and will require a team effort by NAVSEA employees from all four shipyards who have a stake in building a culture of readiness for the 21st Century Navy. Vice Adm. Phillip M. Balisle, NAVSEA Commander considers the shipyards to be national assets, which are dedicated to maintaining Fleet readiness in the war on terrorism.
"One Shipyard for the Nation" will allow NAVSEA to take a closer look at its current processes, make modifications where appropriate and incorporate improved efficiencies throughout all shipyards, which will eventually translate into smarter spending practices.
Sea Enterprise, an essential element of Sea Power 21 is one of the keys to achieving the Navy's goals toward finding greater process efficiencies. "One Shipyard" represents a new phase in the Navy's transformation effort towards ship maintenance and recognizes the individuals who maintain those ships. NAVSEA's ship maintenance remains effective, but must continue to become more efficient.
The "One Shipyard" concept focuses on cost, schedules and quality through standardizing processes, sharing resources among public yards, and partnering with private yards. Other vital elements are material support cooperation, reduction and avoidance in increases in cost and scheduling, and resolving critical skill shortages (corporate approach).
Rear Adm. William Klemm, deputy commander for Naval Sea Systems Command's logistics, maintenance and industrial operations directorate, told reporters during a recent interview at the Washington Navy Yard that the Fleet Response Concept would also require significant changes in the way the Navy and the nation manage the industrial base.
"The 'One Shipyard Concept' is a kind of descriptor for this kind of [distributed] complex," Klemm said. "We have reduced the size of the public and private industrial base to the point where sustaining critical skills has achieved a level of margin, which is very difficult to sustain in the long run. In order to deal with that, we tended to concentrate skill sets in certain areas and share those skill sets rather than have each individual entity build and sustain some of the same skill sets that are rarely used and, therefore, very costly to maintain. In the One Shipyard Concept, as we see that developing today, we can go into a shipyard at Newport News Shipbuilding, or Electric Boat, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, or Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and we will find people from many of the other shipyards working on those projects. The industrial base today has an adequate number of resources, but they are not necessarily where the ships are. Therefore, we have to move those resources to where the ship is at the time they are required. Our forces have to be more mobile and more flexible in responding to the workload."
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