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USS Stethem SRA Underway at SRF-JRMC

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS110526-19
5/26/2011

By Keiichi Adachi, Commander Fleet Activities Yokosuka Public Affairs

YOKOSUKA, Japan (NNS) -- U.S. Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center (SRF-JRMC) began a wide range of repairs to the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63) when the ship went into an approximately four-month long dry-dock April 29.

The effort provides maintenance and modernization repairs designed to keep the 17-year-old ship fully mission capable.

"A smooth docking requires adequate planning and preparation by both the ship and SRF-JRMC," said SRF-JRMC Docking Officer Lt. Cmdr. Mark Schuchmann. "The best moment is when you hear the ship has landed safely on the blocks, and you then can take a big breath and move on to the next phase of connecting shore services and just pumping the dock down to go in to inspect the blocks."

"This is not a Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) scheduled ship's docking selected restricted availability (DSRA), but it is a [CNO directed] SRA with concurrent docking," said Harry Hummer, SRF-JRMC project manager for Stethem. "There will be approximately 600 jobs to accomplish. Critical path jobs are the sonar systems called "V 15" and bow strengthening modification, and forward kingpost removal. Our focus is on keeping the jobs with the longest durations, and called the critical path jobs, on schedule."

According to Schuchmann, ship repair work items are decided by the ship's maintenance team which includes members from ship's force, SRF-JRMC and the type commander's ship port engineer. Together they build the availability work package based on items from the integrated class maintenance plan (ICMP) for the specific ship class, ship class technical advisories, Program and Fleet Alteration packages and mandatory maintenance items from the ship's Current Ship's Maintenance Plan (CSMP). After the work items have been brokered to different maintenance providers including, ship's force, SRF-JRMC, private-sector contractors and alteration installation teams (AIT), an overall integrated schedule is developed.

The maintenance team builds the work package by entering the work items into the Navy Enterprise Maintenance Automated Information System (NEMAIS). From there, jobs are screened by the SRF-JRMC project team composed of the ship's port engineer, project manager, type desk assistants and Japan and United States Navy ship superintendents for detailed engineering planning.

During the Stethem SRA, the production work will be broken into discrete phases of work such as unshipping (or rip-out), in-shop repair, reinstallation and testing in order to prepare SRF-JRMC for the introduction of a new information technology solution, called Advanced Industrial Management (AIM), that it will be implemented at SRF-JRMC in October 2011.

"We introduced AIM into the SRA while separately using NEMAIS," Schuchmann said. "We established several steps, called 'component unit (CU) phases,' to accomplish a complete job. The addition of CU-phases is a unique challenge for this SRA that increases the amount of paperwork to track and execute the work and changes the way the shops think of a work package. Also, the use of work packaging for the first time on Ticonderoga-class cruisers (CG/DDG) projects is another change that the shops must adapt to in order to accomplish work effectively."

"We are trying to get into the 'AIM-mindset,' by introducing CU-phases, work packaging, and opening jobs based on scheduling," Hummer said. "These are changes from previous SRAs where many jobs were opened in the first week regardless of when work would actually start. AIM is very dependent on an accurate and current schedule. If schedules are not correct and kept up to date, then job priority will not be correctly identified in AIM.

This is the first availability to utilize a truly integrated schedule with daily updates.
"Getting personnel in the habit of keeping the schedule current and driving work based on schedule is a major shift in thinking for SRF-JRMC," Hummer added.

According to Schuchmann, the introduction of AIM reflects on three tactical goals of the SRF-JRMC strategic plan, which contributes to the command's future readiness.

"This is a 'stepping-stone' to AIM implementation by developing the work habits necessary to successfully utilize AIM," said Schuchmann.

Stethem is commanded by Cmdr. Hank Adams.