The Navy's Evolving Approach to Intermediate Level Maintenance in the Wake of the Decommissioning of Fleet Tenders

 

CSC 1997

 

Subject Area - Logistics

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

 

TITLE: The Navy's Evolving Approach to Intermediate Level Maintenance in the Wake of the Decommissioning of Fleet Tenders

 

AUTHOR: Lieutenant Commander Mark T. Sakaguchi, USN

 

THESIS: Recent down sizing trends by the Navy have resulted in the decommissioning of all but three fleet tenders, naval base consolidation (forced through base closures), increased operational tempo for active duty ships, and closure of some overseas bases. This created a risk to surface ship readiness, but the Navy responded with the establishment of new concepts such as the Battle Force Intermediate Activity Concept, the Navy Afloat Maintenance Training Strategy, and the Regional Maintenance Concept. The unexpected benefits and shortfalls of each of these concepts presents a new challenge to maintaining ship readiness at sea and ashore. The combined effects of these concepts appear to have not only sustained the previously afforded high state of surface ship readiness, but have the potential of increasing the overall quality of intermediate and depot level maintenance.

 

DISCUSSION: The decision to resize the Navy's intermediate and depot level maintenance structure to fall in line with today's smaller navy was long overdue. However, this decision created a dilemma concerning what repair activities the Navy could afford to reduce or eliminate. Through careful analysis and taking a more realistic look at capabilities, the decision was made to decommission fifteen of the eighteen active duty repair ships (submarine and destroyer tenders).

 

To reduce the effects of the tender downsizing on fleet readiness, the Navy formalized a concept that takes advantage of repair assets and expertise organic to carrier battle groups and amphibious ready groups. This concept is the Battle Force Intermediate Maintenance Activity (BFIMA) program. Through BFIMA, the capabilities inherent in the tenders is retained and distributed throughout deploying ships with the aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships being the focus of the capability. The Navy identified forty core skills which were determined to be necessary to conduct emergent repairs at sea. Through these core skills, specific BFIMA billets were established. The combination of BFIMA billets and repair facilities on aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships allow the Navy to continue self sustained operations at sea.

 

The tender drawdown created a potential for an intermediate level training shortfall throughout the fleet because the tenders played a key role in training maintenance personnel. The Navy responded by establishing the Navy Afloat Maintenance Training Strategy (NAMTS). Through NAMTS, training procedures and sources were consolidated. An unexpected benefit of NAMTS is the establishment of a formal training and proficiency program for intermediate level maintenance personnel. This program includes a database which is used to help personnel managers assign qualified personnel ashore and afloat in support of BFIMA.

 

A third byproduct of the tender decommissionings was the establishment of the Regional Maintenance Concept. This concept became necessary to consolidate more limited shore maintenance activity infrastructure and capabilities. This led to the establishment of eight Regional Maintenance Geographic Regions. Under the Regional Maintenance Concept, regional maintenance centers of excellence were established. These regional maintenance centers consolidated training techniques, maintenance procedures, and closed the gap between civilian and military maintenance personnel to create highly trained "maintenance artisans" in each geographic region.

 

CONCLUSION: Although elimination of fleet repair ships created a gap in intermediate maintenance capability and training, the Navy was quick to recognize this and the potential impact on surface ship readiness. BFIMA, NAMTS, and the Regional Maintenance Concept are all necessary measures taken by the Navy to ensure peak readiness is maintained despite increased operational requirements and less intermediate maintenance capacity while at sea. Although it is still too early to determine the effects the tenders will have on long term fleet readiness, implementation of these programs appears to have made up for the loss of repair capability formerly found in repair ships.

 

 

INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................

BACKGROUND/DEFINITIONS........................................................................................

WHY DECOMMISSION THE TENDERS?........................................................................

WHAT CAPABILITIES DID THE TENDERS PROVIDE?.................................................

BATTLE FORCE INTERMEDIATE MAINTENANCE ACTIVITY CONCEPT..............

NAVY AFLOAT MAINTENANCE TRAINING STRATEGY.........................................

IMPACT ON READINESS...............................................................................................

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS................................................................................

NOTES.............................................................................................................................. 41

GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS................................................................................ 44

BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................... 45

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

            In recent years, the Navy has been challenged with restructuring its maintenance capability and infrastructure to meet the maintenance requirements of a smaller fleet. Although the number of ships had been greatly reduced, until recently, the depot and intermediate level maintenance structures essentially remained the same. The Navy's maintenance capacity was still at a level required to support a 600 ship navy. This resulted in public and private depot and intermediate maintenance activities not working to their full or even optimum capacity. To lower intermediate and depot level maintenance costs and to resize the maintenance structure to match the current force structure, the Navy responded by conducting a critical analysis of repair ship maintenance costs and capabilities. The outcome of the analysis was the decision to decommission all but three repair ships. Since the Navy still maintained a limited requirement to perform intermediate level maintenance on deployed ships, the restructuring of intermediate level maintenance began to evolve beyond the decommissioning of repairs ships.  This led to the establishment of the Battle Force Intermediate Maintenance Activity (BFIMA) concept. The BFIMA concept was formalized to take advantage of battle group assets and expertise to give deployed ships an intermediate maintenance capability comparable to the capability previously found on repair ships. But this repair capability is limited in capacity and subsequently used primarily for emergent repair work. To support the BFIMA concept, the Navy had to establish a training program for intermediate level maintenance personnel. This program, the Navy Afloat Maintenance Training Strategy (NAMTS), has already proven its usefulness beyond its primary purpose of supporting the BFIMA. Through the mere establishment of the NAMTS, the Navy has corrected a previously unrecognized shortfall in the areas of training, qualification, and maintaining proficiency of intermediate level maintenance personnel. Both the BFIMA and NAMTS contributed directly to the Navy's new approach to maintenance ashore under the Regional Maintenance Concept. Through the Regional Maintenance Concept, shore maintenance activities have been consolidated, uniform maintenance procedures have been established, and maintenance personnel training has been enhanced through standardized curricula among both civilian and military maintenance activities.

            The BFIMA, NAMTS, and Regional maintenance concepts were necessary measures taken by the Navy to ensure surface ships maintain a comparable level of self sufficiency and sustainability despite the loss of accompanying repair ships. However, the initial cost of consolidation and establishment of these programs has lowered the savings anticipated from the decommissioning of the Navy's repair ships. Although the Navy retired its repair ships primarily to save money, the establishment of these programs should have an overall long term positive affect on surface ship readiness. Not only will this compensate for the lower overall savings from retiring the repair ships, but the contributions of each of these programs will prove beneficial in the future if the Navy has to expand in response to a new world threat.   

 

BACKGROUND/DEFINITIONS

            Maintenance actions for naval surface ships are performed as either preventive or corrective maintenance. Preventive maintenance actions are "those actions intended to prevent or discover functional failures."[1] Corrective maintenance actions are "those actions intended to return or restore equipment to acceptable performance levels."[2] Maintenance in these two categories is conducted at the organizational, intermediate, and depot levels.

            Organizational-level maintenance is "the lowest maintenance echelon and consists of all maintenance actions within the capability of ship's force."[3] Intermediate-level maintenance is

normally accomplished by Navy Intermediate Maintenance Activity (IMA) personnel on or at tenders, repair ships, aircraft carriers, Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Departments (AIMD), submarine refit and support facilities, Shore IMAs, and Naval Reserve IMA Maintenance Facilities.[4]

Intermediate maintenance requirements are those that normally are beyond ship's force capability or capacity and include both preventive and corrective maintenance, as well as, installation of minor alterations. Fleet maintenance, under the regional maintenance concept, includes both organizational and intermediate-level maintenance. Depot level maintenance

is that maintenance which requires skills or facilities beyond those of the organizational and intermediate levels and is performed by naval shipyards, private shipyards, naval ship repair facilities, or item depot activities.[5]

Some preventive and corrective maintenance is performed at the depot level, but most depot level work involves alterations or modifications which update and improve the ship's military and technical capabilities. Under the regional maintenance concept, depot maintenance is defined as industrial maintenance. Ashore maintenance refers to maintenance conducted while a ship, submarine, or aircraft is located at its home port or normal operating base or at a shipyard or naval aviation depot facility. Afloat maintenance refers to preventive and corrective maintenance conducted while at sea and when forward deployed.

            In addition to the forward deployed submarine tenders, destroyer tenders were typically deployed to each theater to support deployed battle group and amphibious ready group ships. This allowed a forward repair capability to the battle group and amphibious ready groups that were deployed. This repair capability was necessary to allow for quick corrective maintenance during a ship's deployment to maintain top readiness. It also allowed these ships to enter an abbreviated maintenance period for two to three weeks to conduct routine and preventive maintenance. This helped to ensure sustained material readiness instead of cyclic readiness that mirrored deployment cycles.

            From November 1994 to September 1996, the Navy decommissioned six destroyer tenders and seven submarine tenders.[6] This has resulted in only three submarine tenders remaining in active service. One tender is forward deployed to the Mediterranean Sea and one is forward deployed at Guam. The remaining tender is homeported in the United States and is scheduled to be decommissioned by 1998. Once decommissioned, it will be placed in an INACT 30 status. This means it will be in an inactive status, but can be restored to full mission capability in 30 days. The primary reason for leaving one tender in INACT 30 status is to allow for uninterrupted tender availability in the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters while the normally assigned tender returns to the United States for periodic (once every five years) dry docking availabilities. A secondary benefit of one tender in INACT 30 status is it will provide a surge capability for a two major regional contingency (MRC) scenario in support of the national security strategy.[7]

 

WHY DECOMMISSION THE TENDERS?

            The decision to eliminate repair ships was based on two primary reasons. Probably the most significant factor influencing the decision to get rid of repair ships was the cost to operate them - both the day to day operations and the man hour cost estimate to conduct repairs on supported ships. In the past, there existed a misconception that the labor performed by sailors was cheap. This misconception stemmed from the fact that when estimating the cost of a repair at a naval intermediate level maintenance facility or on board ship, the cost of labor was not applied because it was not directly related to that specific repair. In other words, the cost of labor did not come out of the operations and maintenance budget so it was not factored. However, it is estimated that up to 40 percent of the overall cost of the operating cost of a ship and 70-80 percent of the cost at repair activities can be attributed to labor.[8] It is important to realize that when estimating the cost of navy manpower, the cost of training that sailor (to include per diem while being trained, travel allowances, and cost of operating the training command/school) is included with their normal pay and allowances. When compared to repair costs incurred at depot facilities, the tender repair cost was from three to four times greater than the depots.[9] Although the repair cost for a depot or industrial facility is a fixed standard based on man-hours to conduct a repair or maintenance action, the driving cost for repair ships was not a fixed amount for each repair. The repair cost for a tender, in terms of manpower, included the overhead, the training of the sailors, and the operating cost of the repair ship. As a repair ship's workload increased, the manpower cost per maintenance action decreased. Therefore, for the repair ships to operate at the lowest manpower cost, they would have to work at their peak repair capacity in terms of work force. If repair work was assigned to repair ships first and then to depot facilities, we would create a system in which the depot facilities became a surge repair asset to pick up the excess work from repair ships. In plain business terms, this would not make it cost effective for the depot facilities to remain in business or it would significantly drive up the man-hour cost for these depot facilities. To fully understand the reason the Navy needs to keep costs down at the depot facilities, the term depot facility must be clarified.

            In relation to surface ships and submarines, a depot facility usually refers to a shipyard. The Navy uses both public and private shipyards to perform depot level and some intermediate level maintenance. The Navy currently maintains four public or naval shipyards. Twenty-eight private shipyards perform maintenance, modernization, and repair on Navy ships. The thirty-two shipyards and eighteen repair ships resulted in an excess of maintenance capacity. Since public shipyards are operated by the Navy, they offer greater flexibility than private shipyards and can more quickly respond to unprogrammed, quick-turnaround requirements.[10] Private shipyards are necessary to support the Department of Defense requirement to maintain an industrial preparedness to produce, maintain, and repair materiel for meeting surge and mobilization requirements.[11] Additionally, federal law mandates that the Navy will "create and maintain an efficient commercial shipbuilding and repair capability in the United States with enough skilled personnel to provide an adequate mobilization base."[12] This resulted in the following dilemma. How can the Navy balance the operating cost of public shipyards, provide sufficient repair work to maintain efficient, competent, and competitive private shipyards, and operate fleet repair ships? Since public shipyards require congressional approval to shutdown, they had to be maintained. As far as private shipyards were concerned, the Navy had to essentially guarantee them a certain amount of repair work. This guaranteed work would keep man-hour costs down by providing sufficient work to cover the overhead and infrastructure of operating the depot facility. But, the same federal regulations that require the Navy to maintain a private industrial base restricts the amount of depot level work assigned to the private shipyards to 40 percent of all depot level work.[13] Tender repair work assignment became the low priority which left them well under their maintenance capacity. This drove tender operating costs up and resulted in the tenders becoming less economical. Consequently, the only place left to cut to reduce excess maintenance capacity was the fleet of repair ships.

            A second contributing factor to the demise of the repair ships was the reality of their limitations in regards to battle damage repair capability. In 1989, the Navy conducted an analysis of ship battle damage repair called the Ship Battle Damage Repair (SBDR) Plan. The purpose for the study was to identify capabilities of a new class of repair ship. This ship was supposed to "replace old World War II tenders and repair ships,"[14] but because of budget problems and the recent downsizing, the ship was neither designed nor built. Under the SBDR concept, three objectives of forward battle damage repair were established:

·    Return ships to service quickly;

·    Insure the survival of damaged ships;

·    Move damaged ships out of danger.[15]

            The SBDR concept also classified battle damage as Minor Damage, Moderate Damage, and Major Damage. Ships that experienced Minor Damage attempted to make repairs through their own capability or through other battle group resources. If repairs could not be made using resources immediately available, the damage ship would proceed to a safe haven and conduct repairs with a repair ship. Ships that experienced Moderate Damage would proceed to the rear to a depot repair facility to get the needed repairs. Ships that experienced Major Damage would be patched up in the rear and then have to return to the United States for repair.[16] Based on this concept, the utility of the repair ship in support of its battle damage repair mission is questionable.

            Another outcome of the study was the realization that the repair ships require additional manpower to repair modern battle damage. To accomplish this, the repair ships would be provided an augmentation team comprised of personnel assigned to shore IMAs and mobile technical units. Personnel assigned to these activities were assigned an augmentation billet number based on critical skills to repair damage from missiles, mines, and debris. During a major regional contingency, the augmentation force would be mobilized and deploy with the repair ships.[17] This occurred to a lesser extent during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. In addition to manning shortfalls, the SBDR study revealed a shortage of materials and capability to repair critical systems (such as phased array radar, wave guides, fiber optics) which were most susceptible to topside collateral damage.[18]

            Although the SBDR concept was focused on justification for designing a modern repair ship to replace World War II repair ships, the study identified shortfalls with the existing tender fleet in their ability to repair modern battle damage. Despite the fact that the study revealed some serious shortfalls with the tenders regarding their war time repair capability, none of these shortfalls would be too difficult to overcome in a short period of time if a crisis should develop. But, even after these shortfalls were corrected, the tenders would still bring a limited capability to battle damage repair because of the lethality of modern weapons. Examples of recent ship damage resulting from hostile acts realistically depicts the capability of the Navy to perform battle damage repair. USS STARK (FFG 31) was severely damaged in 1987 after being struck by two EXOCET anti-ship missiles. The fact the United States was not at war is irrelevant because this is the type of damage that can be expected with modern weapons. STARK had to be towed to port for temporary repairs and then returned to the United States for permanent repair. Similarly, USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (FFG 58) was severely damaged after it struck a mine in the Persian Gulf in 1988. The damage sustained by ROBERTS was so severe that it had to be brought back to the United States on a heavy lift ship. The damage sustained by both STARK and ROBERTS was well beyond the capability of a tender. Given the firepower, precision, and lethality of today's weapons, repairing battle damage at sea is unrealistic.

 

WHAT CAPABILITIES DID THE TENDERS PROVIDE?

            Based on the premise that repairing battle damage at sea is a thing of the past, the question arises as to what capabilities did the tenders provide during peacetime? Tenders brought the Navy a self sufficient capability when in their homeport and forward deployed. In addition to their repair capability, destroyer and submarine tenders had full medical and dental facilities, were able to provide ships and submarines with hotel services (electricity, steam, water, sewage collection) during maintenance periods, temporary messing and berthing spaces, weapons handling facilities, and, for submarine tenders, they provided the command and control platform and capability for the SUBRON commander. Although these capabilities provided tended ships with many services in peacetime, these capabilities were redundant to those found at most naval stations. For deployed ships, these capabilities provided the battle group commanders and ship commanding officers with an available asset to conduct limited maintenance availabilities midway through a deployment. But the decommissioning of most steam combatants has resulted in a fleet of ships that have fewer maintenance requirements and an inherent capability to provide necessary shore services without outside assistance (for a steam ship, engineering plant maintenance to the steam system would require securing of main boilers and subsequently, a need for outside assistance to provide the ship with electricity and auxiliary steam for hotel services). Additionally, as the size of the Navy decreased, the size of typical battle groups has decreased while the number of commitments has remained the same or increased. This has left little time in a deployed ship's schedule for an extended maintenance availability (two to three weeks). The demand on these secondary capabilities decreased because of ship design considerations and less maintenance intensive systems being installed on ships. The operating schedule of the battle group drove maintenance availability time down which further contributed to less utilization of the tenders. As discussed earlier, the less the tenders are used, the more costly the repair work becomes per man-hour.

            A final benefit of the tenders is not as apparent as a their repair capability or the services they provided to tended ships. The tenders also served to train our Fleet sailors in repair and maintenance skills. These skills were then brought back to the fleet through normal sea shore rotation (assignment to the repair department on a tender was equivalent to shore duty except when the tender was deployed).[19] In 1994, the tender repair force was approximately 10,000 sailors. By 1996, this number decreased to just under 2000.[20] Consequently, the number of talented "fixers" leaving the tenders and returning to operational units has drastically decreased.

            The decommissioning of the tenders presented a potential shortfall to the sustained readiness of deployed ships. First, by retiring all but three tenders, the Navy severely degraded its organic capability to repair ships out of their homeport. This would either increase the reliance of the United States on host nation support during deployments or result in decreased readiness. To compensate for the loss of this organic repair capability, the Navy established the Battle Force Intermediate Maintenance Concept. Secondly, decommissioning the tenders potentially threatened the quantity and quality of highly trained IMA personnel in the Navy. To maintain the resource base of IMA personnel and meet Navy goals of sea-shore rotation for enlisted personnel, the Navy would have to either assign more personnel to shore IMAs or establish another mechanism to train these personnel. While assigning more personnel to shore IMAs would solve the training problem, it would also result in the shore IMAs becoming less economical because of the same reasons the tenders became less economical (greater work capacity than work load). Therefore, in conjunction with the BFIMA concept described below, the Navy established the Navy Afloat Maintenance Training Strategy to make up for the loss of on-the-job training formerly inherent in repair ships.  NAMTS will be discussed in detail later in this paper.

 

BATTLE FORCE INTERMEDIATE MAINTENANCE ACTIVITY CONCEPT

            The BFIMA is defined as the

collective Battle Force elements capable of performing maintenance beyond the organizational level. A BFIMA maximizes the Battle Force's ability to operate and sustain itself at sea during extended periods in forward areas through improved repair capabilities and material self sufficiency.[21]  

In other words, BFIMA is the reliance of repair assets and expertise organic to a ship, a squadron of ships, a carrier battle group, or an amphibious ready group. The BFIMA concept is not new.  In the past, ships routinely worked with one another to compensate for manning shortfalls when in their homeport, when at sea, and when forward deployed. What is new, however, is that the Navy has formalized the concept in an attempt to make up for lost repair and maintenance capability resulting from the decommissioning of the tenders.

            The BFIMA concept started out as using the aviation intermediate maintenance department (AIMD) on aircraft carrier as a repair facility for the battle group. This expanded to include the repair department and industrial plant equipment from the carrier itself. The next step in the evolutionary process was to use the maintenance facilities onboard the LHAs and LHDs to assist with intermediate maintenance of forward deployed ships. Soon after the Navy made the AIMDs, CVNs, LHAs, and LHDs available as battle force maintenance assets, several problems were discovered.

            The first problem identified was that the manning on these ships (CVN, LHA, LHD) and the AIMD were fixed to support their own maintenance requirements. This meant that the additional maintenance requirements could only be met on a case by case basis when their repair departments were light loaded. But to support these maintenance requirements, the Navy investigated the possibility of adding additional billets to the CVNs, LHAs, and LHDs. Besides increasing the number of billets for NECs already inherent in the repair departments and AIMD, there were certain repair skills that were just not part of the carrier, LHA, LHD and AIMD repair structure. For example, none of these repair activities possess the specific ratings to perform intermediate level maintenance to marine gas turbine engines (used aboard the majority of our cruisers, destroyers, and frigates) nor do they have the repair expertise to repair the AEGIS combat system. During the transition from tender provided maintenance to BFIMA provided maintenance, an obvious gap in repair capability for class specific equipment and systems was quickly realized. Not only did the BFIMA have a manning capacity shortfall, but it also had a manning capability shortfall. In an attempt to resolve these shortfalls, the Navy considered the option of adding billets to the carrier and large deck amphibious ship repair departments. Before the question of how many and what mix of billets to add was answered, the Navy realized that it could not afford to add hundreds of billets to the CVNs, LHAs, and LHDs to replace the thousands of repair billets that were integrated in the eighteen tenders that were previously in service. From the perspective of ship berthing requirements, these ships could not absorb additional manning without making reductions in original manning levels required to complete the ship's primary mission.   This would not work. But more importantly, the Navy was in the process of downsizing. As discussed earlier, 70-80 percent of the cost of maintenance is the cost of labor. The Navy just could not afford to create additional repair billets to the carriers and LHAs/LHDs to support the BG/ARG intermediate maintenance requirements.

            This manning and expertise dilemma brought the Navy to the next step in the evolution of the battle force intermediate maintenance concept. The Battle Force Intermediate Maintenance concept expanded beyond the repair capabilities of the carriers and large deck amphibious ships to include identification of expertise and personnel with critical NECs on all BG and ARG assets. Under this concept,

ships in the Carrier Battle Group will rely on the Aircraft Carrier as the most capable repair asset in the vicinity. Similarly, members of the Amphibious Ready Group will rely on the Amphibious Assault Ships.[22]

In addition to using the industrial equipment capabilities of the BGIMA/ARGIMA, all ships assigned to the battle group or amphibious ready group will make available personnel who are qualified to perform work at the intermediate level through their previous assignments or formal schooling. While deployed, if a ship encounters an emergent repair that is beyond their own capability, a work request will be transmitted to the BFIMA/ARGIMA. If the repair is within the capability of the CVN/LHA/LHD and the capacity of the required shop is not overloaded, the work will be accepted. If the repair requirement is for technical assistance onboard the requesting ship, a designated repair technician from the CV/LHA/LHD or other battle group asset will be sent to the requesting ship to assist.

            To ensure an even distribution of intermediate maintenance personnel are available to each battle group, the fleet commanders identified forty core skills that they considered essential to self sufficiency while deployed. These core skills were then distributed based on ship class and typical deployment ship mix to establish the number of afloat intermediate maintenance billets to support each battle group and amphibious ready group. When combined with the tender repair department manning for the remaining tenders, a total of 4321 core billets were identified. As a result, under the Battle Force Intermediate Maintenance concept, afloat intermediate level maintenance is defined as "the 4321 billets identified within the remaining Tender Repair departments and those selected billets on the deploying ship classes."[23] Of the 4321 billets identified, only 220 billets are new (10 per each of the eleven carriers and eleven amphibious assault ships).[24] The remaining 4101 billets are existing billets that have been identified on deploying ship classes. These billets are centered around the 40 core maintenance skills (see Table 1) identified by the fleet commanders.[25]    It is essential to understand that the 4321 designated BFIMA billets are established to retain a minimum organic repair capability previously found on tenders. These billets are not expected to replace the repair capacity of the 10,000 sailors formerly assigned to tenders.  Therefore, under the BFIMA concept, battle groups maintain a requisite amount of expertise to conduct emergent repairs while a ship is forward deployed.

            However, to keep in line with the concept of self sufficiency beyond the normal organizational level of repair, it was not enough to just identify key billets on board battle group assets. As stated earlier, one of the missions of IMAs (afloat and ashore) is to "provide in-rate training and experience for enlisted ratings who repair and maintain shipboard systems."[26] Therefore, the Navy had to ensure that the same level of expertise previously found on tenders was achieved and maintained for the 4321 BFIMA established billets. But now the intermediate maintenance force structure expanded beyond the tenders and shore IMAs. Additionally, since the basis of most training by IMAs is centered around on-the-job training, there was a concern that the BFIMA throughput would not sustain proficiency.[27] Aside from the problem of establishing the command and coordination structure of the BFIMA, several new challenges were discovered. The Navy now had to manage the 4321 designated BFIMA billets to include training these personnel, maintaining and tracking their proficiency, and distributing them to maintain self sufficiency. This brought about the realization that

there [was] no integrated training system in place to support the qualification and training of ship maintenance personnel. There [existed] a multitude of processes that [were] not integrated in a system with agreed upon, mutually supportive objectives focused on the evolving afloat mission.[28]

To establish a higher level of expertise and to evenly distribute that expertise throughout the fleet in support of the Battle Force Intermediate Maintenance activity and forward deployed readiness the Navy has established the Navy Afloat Maintenance Training Strategy (NAMTS).

 

NAVY AFLOAT MAINTENANCE TRAINING STRATEGY

            The NAMTS is a critical component of maintaining the Navy's intermediate maintenance capability. Although it is a direct result of the BFIMA concept, it will fully serve to enhance the overall quality of the Navy's intermediate maintenance capability. The central objectives of the NAMTS are:

 

· Identification of the required BFIMA core skills;

·Development of a defined and measurable manning and training continuum to support those core skills;

· Integrate training processes across enlisted community lines where it makes sense to do so;

· Conduct qualification training while personnel are assigned to shore repair activities;

· Continue training when afloat to maintain performance proficiency;

· Maximize training resources, avoid duplication, and reduce costs by combining existing maintenance facilities, authorized curricula, and emerging institutional technology.[29]

            The BFIMA core skills have already been identified (Table 1). An important feature of the NAMTS is that it is a dynamic process and as new ships are designed and older ships decommissioned, the BFIMA core skills will have to reflect these changes. This is, therefore, an ongoing process.

            One of the biggest challenges associated with the NAMTS and BFIMA concept is the management of the 4321 designated BFIMA billets. Ship manning documents for twenty-four deploying ship classes were reviewed and BFIMA billets were matched with existing billets to optimize requirements with existing ship resources.[30] The difficult task is now to match BFIMA billets with personnel who possess the required skills to fill these billets. Since the Navy did not have a standardized training plan for maintenance personnel, it is

BFIMA CORE SKILLS
Core Skill	Source Rating	Core Skill	Source Rating
SHIPFITTER	HT	SHEET METAL WORKER	HT
INSIDE MACHINIST	HT	GOVERNOR & INJECTOR DIESEL MECHANIC	EN
VALVE REPAIR TECHNICIAN	MM/BT, EN, GSM	DIESEL ENGINE TECHNICIAN	EN
HYDRAULICS REPAIR TECHNICIAN	MM/BT, EN, GSM	PUMP REPAIR TECHNICIAN	MM/BT, EN, GSM
HLS/RAST TECHNICIAN (ELEC)	EM	HLS/RAST  TECHNICIAN (MECH)	EN
GAS TURBINE REPAIR TECHNICIAN	GS, GSE, GSM	OPTICAL REPAIR TECHNICIAN	OM
OUTSIDE MACHINE SHOP TECHNICIAN	MM/BT, EN	ORDNANCE REPAIR	GM, GMG, GMM
BOILER REPAIR TECHNICIAN	MM/BT	AUTOMATIC COMBUSTION CONTROL TECHNICIAN	MM/BT
INSIDE ELECTRICAL REPAIR	EM	OUTSIDE ELECTRICAL REPAIR	EM
GYRO REPAIRMAN	IC	INTERIOR COMMS TECHNICIAN	IC, EM
PIPEFITTER	HT	REFRIGERATION AND AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEMS TECHNICIAN	EN
FLEX HOSE FABRICATOR	MM/BT, GSM, HT	LAGGING AND PIPE COVERING REPAIRMAN	HT, MM/BT
RUBBER AND PLASTIC WORKER	EM, HT	ELECTRONICS REPAIR TECHNICIAN	ET
FLEET ELECTRONICS CALIBRATION TECHNICIAN	ET	FIRE CONTROL TECHNICIAN	FC, FT
SONAR REPAIR TECHNICIAN	STG, MN	ANTENNA REPAIR TECHNICIAN	ET
NAVIGATION EQUIPMENT REPAIR TECHNICIAN (SUBS)	ET	PERSONAL COMPUTER REPAIR TECHNICIAN	ET, DS
2M MODULE TEST & REPAIR TECHNICIAN	ET, FC, IM	BOAT REPAIRMAN	BM, HT
CORROSION CONTROL TECHNICIAN	BM	RIGGER/WEIGHT TESTER	BM
FOUNDRYMAN	ML, HT, MR	NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTER	HT
MECHANICAL INSTRUMENT REPAIR AND CALIBRATION TECHNICIAN	IM	GAS TURBINE ON-SITE CALIBRATION TECHNICIAN	GSE, IM,IC, EN

Table 1. BFIMA CORE SKILLS [31]

difficult to identify those personnel in afloat billets who possess the requisite skills to be designated as BFIMA qualified. Furthermore, once the Navy identifies those personnel who were previously assigned to an IMA, their level of proficiency is unknown because the Navy did not have a means to conduct proficiency training outside the IMA and it did not track proficiency. This will undoubtedly present the biggest challenge to the transition to both the BFIMA and NAMTS concepts.  However, once the NAMTS is fully implemented, this deficiency will be rectified and the Navy will have an effective mechanism to monitor self sufficiency and further enhance fleet readiness.

            Under the NAMTS concept, not only does the Navy conduct training for BFIMA personnel, but those personnel who are BFIMA designated will be tracked for proficiency and duty assignment. Once a sailor is BFIMA qualified, he/she will be entered into a navy wide database. This database will include current assignments (by region), BFIMA core skills possessed, and maintenance proficiency information. The database will be used by BUPERS to support the detailing and billeting requirements of battle force commanders and it will also be used by the Regional Maintenance Centers to assist in maintenance assignment and training.[32] It is important to note that although specific billets on deployable ships are designated as BFIMA core billets, the sailors assigned to those billets are filling ship operator billets as a primary duty. The core BFIMA maintenance skill is a secondary responsibility.[33]

            From a readiness point of view, the NAMTS has the potential of greatly enhancing the level of expertise on ships across the board. An example career path in support of the NAMTS is as follows. A sailor finishes his/her initial sea tour and is then assigned to a shore repair activity. While assigned to the shore repair activity, he/she will complete the BFIMA core skills qualification requirements. At the end of his/her shore tour, he/she will return to sea and be assigned to a designated BFIMA core skill billet. As long as the sailor maintains maintenance proficiency, he/she will continue to carry the BFIMA qualification. In reality, however, there are other career enhancing jobs (such as recruiting and instructor duty) which will temporarily remove the sailor from the BFIMA skill career path. This may result in a future requirement for greater than 4321 BFIMA designated personnel and establishes a requirement for training to regain proficiency.

            Through the NAMTS, core skills have been identified, qualification requirements have been established, BFIMA billet distribution has been established, and the billet assignment and control process (sea/shore rotation) is being analyzed.[34] The final aspect of the NAMTS is the need to streamline and consolidate training. Under the old system, maintenance training at IMAs was conducted individually and through numerous sources. Additionally, each tender and shore IMA had different standards of training, different qualification and certification procedures and different methods for tracking the qualification status of assigned personnel. The NAMTS has since established standardized fleet job qualification requirements, but the source of the training is still under review. The ultimate aim of NAMTS is to channel sailors needing BFIMA skills to the most cost-effective training possible within their region.[35] This is being done by cataloguing the maintenance training currently being provided under contract by cognizant Type Commanders, training available within a public industrial activity (naval shipyards), and training provided by fleet technical support center personnel.[36] The benefits associated with training consolidation are:

· Training costs will be reduced by eliminating the infrastructure associated with redundant training;

· Training will teach standard maintenance practices based on the most efficient and reliable techniques in support of the Regional Maintenance Concept;

· Training shortfalls will be avoided.

            The NAMTS concept is still evolving and is not expected to be fully implemented until early 1998.[37] Although the NAMTS was originally conceived to ensure qualified and proficient craftsmen are available to fill the BFIMA core billets, it will enhance the overall intermediate maintenance capability of the Navy by fixing a training program that the Navy did not realize was broken. If the Navy finds a future requirement to bring back the repair ships, the NAMTS can be applied to the training and qualification of sailors assigned to them. The The benefits of NAMTS NAMTS extend beyond the BFIMA concept into the Navy's intermediate and depot maintenance forces ashore through the also supports the Regional Maintenance Regional Maintenance conceptconcept by consolidating and standardizing training facilities and procedures among the shore IMAs and naval shipyards. through consolidation and control of key maintenance billets.

 

REGIONAL MAINTENANCE: A NEW APPROACH TO SHIP MAINTENANCE

            Not only did the tender drawdown affect the way the Navy maintains readiness while forward deployed, but it also has affected the maintenance capacity of ships in their homeport. In the past, ships were placed in a three to four week intermediate maintenance availability (IMAV) with a shore IMA or a tender about every three to four months. Regional Maintenance is "a major Navy initiative to support a twenty-first century maintenance process which will most efficiently use the Navy's organic shore maintenance capacity."[38] The primary objectives of Regional Maintenance are to integrate and consolidate shore maintenance activities and practices to reduce overhead and redundancy and reduce common maintenance management infrastructure. Reductions in military force structure and increased reliability, maintainability, and durability of shipboard equipment and systems have decreased the need for intermediate level maintenance support. Although this reduced requirement contributed to the elimination of most of the fleet tenders, eliminated all but four Naval shipyards (as a result of the base realignment and closure commission(BRACC)), and reduced the maintenance force, the "total cost of maintenance and the number of activities (and associated overhead) have not reduced in proportion to the reduction in either personnel or force structure."[39] Regional maintenance attempts to refocus maintenance expenditure on performing maintenance instead of over managing it.

            Under the Regional Maintenance concept, the Navy's maintenance capabilities were consolidated into eight geographic regions. These regions are designated the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Ingleside, Northwest, Southwest, Hawaii, and

 

 

Western Pacific. A single centralized Regional Maintenance Center has been established within each geographic region to receive, execute, manage, and report maintenance and repair requirements for designated Regional Repair Centers.[41] Regional Maintenance Teams and Regional Repair Centers are being established in each regional maintenance geographic region. Regional Maintenance Teams are "site specific, multi-disciplined groups of people normally accomplishing 'outside shop' or on platform work."[42] Regional Repair Centers are "'inside shops' focusing on a particular product line or technology."[43] Regional repair teams and regional maintenance teams are comprised of both military and civilian workers. Although it may appear that the Navy has created more infrastructure by establishing these maintenance teams and repair centers, they are only titles given to existing repair facilities. They, in fact, reflect the product of maintenance center consolidation.

            The consolidation process used to establish regional repair centers encompassed both intermediate level and depot level maintenance facilities. Navy intermediate level repair activities in a given geographic region were consolidated to a single activity. For example, the shore intermediate maintenance activity at Little Creek, VA was merged with the shore intermediate maintenance activity in the Norfolk, VA. What was previously two fully capable, yet independent, maintenance activities located within ten miles of one another has become a single activity at the Norfolk Naval Base with a satellite repair facility at Little Creek Amphibious Base.[44] Similarly, certain repair functions at IMAs were moved and collocated with shops at public depot facilities to form a single center of excellence. For example, the motor rewind shops from the shore intermediate maintenance activities in Norfolk and Little Creek were moved to the motor rewind facility at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, VA to form a motor rewind regional repair center. The result is a single repair organization manned by civilians and military personnel. The benefit is reduced infrastructure, better on-the-job training and quality assurance.[45]

            Regional maintenance also combined assets from platform specific repair facilities (where similarities and overlap existed) to form a single repair facility which services all platforms.  An example of this is the maintenance requirement for gauge and equipment calibration for submarines, surface ships, and aircraft in the Mid-Atlantic region.  Before consolidation, each type commander fulfilled calibration requirements through their own repair facilities and outsourcing of the public sector. Calibration was conducted at AIMDs, Trident Rework Facilities (TRF), shore IMAs, public shipyards, and on tenders.   In all, 32 laboratories existed. There were 333 personnel (206 civilian and 127 military) assigned to the laboratories and a requirement to maintain 13,260 calibration standards to support fleet requirements. Through the regional maintenance concept, the 32 laboratories were consolidated into one laboratory (with three satellite centers) to form the Mid-Atlantic Calibration Regional Repair Center. The number of assigned personnel was reduced to 191 (68 civilian and 123 military) and the required number of calibrations standards maintained was reduced to 9282. There was no immediate affect noted by the customers (fleet surface, subsurface, and aviation commands) concerning the quality, throughput, or responsiveness of the calibration regional repair center. The Navy estimates a savings of $16 million per year.[46]

            Another benefit of consolidating maintenance facilities is the procedures for performing the maintenance are becoming standardized. When maintenance activities were combined, it was realized that different commands had different procedures for accomplishing the same repair or maintenance action. By combining the maintenance facilities, individual procedures were reviewed and revised to reflect the most cost effective and reliable repair procedure. This process has been married up with the process for standardizing job qualification requirements in support of the NAMTS. The goal is to use existing subject matter experts to create a

presence of depot artisans on the waterfront in integrated civilian-military teams to work aboard ships for trouble shooting, removal, rigging, reinstallation, alignment, and system checkout.[47]

            Implementation of the Regional Maintenance concept began on 01 October 1994. Because of the scope of maintenance facility consolidation and infrastructure reduction, the program is not expected to be fully implemented until the year 2000. Although the program has great potential to save millions of dollars in repair funding, it will be difficult to measure the true savings until after the program is fully implemented. During the transition period, true savings may not be realized because there is an added cost to consolidate maintenance activities. This cost may be in the form of funding for repair process improvement, the cost incurred to shutdown a facility and relocate both military and civilian personnel previously assigned to that facility, and the cost of moving hardware from existing repair facilities to a centrally located regional repair center. Additionally, the Navy must be critical of the cost savings since the manning budget and operations and maintenance budget are not centrally managed. A savings in operations and maintenance budget at one location may end up being absorbed in the manning budget of the consolidated repair activity. A final caution which must be noted is that due to the long time (six years) for implementation, there is the possibility of "concept creep." By this, I mean that when cutting infrastructure, it is natural for people to become protective to save their job. It is incumbent upon the Navy to ensure unneeded infrastructure is consolidated in the process of combining and consolidating repair activities.

 

IMPACT ON READINESS

            What is the effect of decommissioning the tenders and the establishment of Regional Maintenance on ship readiness? This is very difficult to quantify because a ship's material readiness is dependent on more than just the availability of tenders. Some of these variables include the nature and duration of ship's operations; the number and quality of ship's force maintenance personnel; and the number and quality of other intermediate level and depot level maintenance availabilities the ship has received.[48]

            A ship's operating schedule has become more of a factor in relation to its material readiness because of current force structure and operational commitments. Although the navy is attempting to adhere to an optempo of fifty percent, the bottom line is that we are doing the same (or more) as we did during the Cold War with less. Ten years ago, a typical battle group deployment consisted of an aircraft carrier, a combination of three guided missile cruisers and destroyers, two destroyers, and three frigates. Today, we are still deploying carrier battle groups with a combination of three guided missile cruisers and destroyers, two destroyers, and two frigates. But the number of available ships is down from 568 to about 350. Close to thirty percent of our ships are deployed on any given day and 45-50% of our ships are out to sea conducting various operations.[49] Given these percentages, there is not a lot of time to conduct maintenance while inport and the relatively high tempo of operations continues to drive maintenance requirements higher. As a result, ships are competing for limited intermediate maintenance assets. Given the Navy's mission of power projection and forward presence, it is unlikely that there will be much change in operational commitments in the coming years. The implementation of distributed maintenance specialists will significantly enhance the day to day readiness of the Navy.

            A second significant factor affecting ship material readiness is the quality, experience, and technical ability of the ship's crew. The majority of preventive and corrective maintenance being conducted is performed by ship's force. Under current ship manning levels, there is an adequate number of personnel to perform this maintenance. Since a ship's commanding officer is responsible for the material readiness of his ship, it is doubtful that he will allow the tender drawdown to have much of an effect on the material readiness of his ship. But we need to be cautious because the initial reaction is to work our sailors harder to pick up for the lost maintenance capability and capacity at the intermediate level.

            A third factor to consider regarding the overall material readiness of ships is the frequency of intermediate and depot level availabilities. This is an area where the navy is actively pursuing suitable alternatives to tenders. Some of these alternatives include the establishment of battle force intermediate activities (BFIMA) and amphibious ready group intermediate activities (ARGIMA), and organizing shore maintenance activities under the regional maintenance program.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

            What has changed since the end or the Cold War to warrant decommissioning of twelve tenders? The Navy concept paper Forward.From the Sea would lead one to believe that a greater requirement exists today to maintain a forward deployed repair capability. But given the financial resources allocated to the Navy, the Navy could not sustain the existing maintenance policies and infrastructure. By eliminating all but two of the fleet repair ships, the Navy is taking a risk in force sustainability. To help counter that risk, the Navy has made significant changes to its approach to maintenance both ashore and afloat. Through the BFIMA concept, the Navy is attempting to retain capabilities offered by fleet repair ships. In order for this concept to work, it must be understood that the BFIMA is not a replacement for the tender intermediate level maintenance capacity. But when the repair facilities of the aircraft carrier and the amphibious assault ship are combined with the BFIMA qualified sailors in the battle group, the battle group commander retains a comparable intermediate maintenance capability as he had on a tender.  The BFIMA concept brings new challenges to the Navy in management of maintenance personnel training and proficiency and management of maintenance assets while forward deployed. But none of these challenges is too great for the maintenance managers and commanding officers to overcome. Just as a ship managed to acquire maintenance personnel from forward deployed tenders located in a different part of a theater of operations, the maintenance managers and commanding officers will learn how to best utilize organic battle group assets to perform the same emergent repair under the BFIMA concept. There are challenges inherent in the BFIMA concept just as there were with the tenders, but none of the challenges is so great that the maintenance managers and commanding officers cannot overcome.

            An unexpected benefit of the BFIMA concept is the creation of a formalized intermediate level maintenance training program. Besides ensuring sailors are trained to conduct intermediate level maintenance, the Navy will benefit by having a system to track the training and proficiency of these designated personnel. NAMTS will affect ship readiness through distribution of talent among twenty-four classes of ships and it will also provide a realistic status of where the Navy stands to support fleet readiness. There is more to readiness than putting ships to sea. To maintain them at sea, they must be maintained and operated by trained personnel. NAMTS provides the mechanism to monitor the intermediate maintenance capability of the Navy.

            The Regional Maintenance concept is also a much needed initiative to eliminate waste from redundancy and excessive infrastructure. Regional maintenance has already penetrated stove piping in the Navy between platform specific organizations and between the unofficial east coast and west coast Navies. Although there is potential for huge savings, there is a certain risk involved. By establishing single regional repair centers, the Navy is "putting all of its eggs in one basket." While this reduces overhead, enhances training, and improves overall the quality of repair work, a process mistake or disaster to the facility could severely cripple the Navy's capability in that region. But given the size of the Navy today and the requirement to maintain an adequate commercial shipbuilding and repair mobilization base, the risk is necessary and manageable. By combining military and civilian maintenance personnel in the same maintenance activities, the risk is further reduced by improved quality assurance and checks and balances between the two maintenance structures.

            The true measure of effectiveness of all of these programs is the impact on fleet readiness. This is very difficult to quantify since it is dependent on so many factors. It is dangerous to jump to conclusions based on a small snapshot in time. There are already estimates that the tender drawdown has not negatively impacted fleet readiness. But what is the measure of fleet readiness? A repair procedure that is improperly performed may correct the immediate problem that caused the need for repair, but if it was not performed properly, the life of the repair may only be a fraction of what it would have been had it been done by a tender or other maintenance activity that was not overloaded due to consolidation. Similarly, since the tenders provided intermediate level maintenance training to fleet personnel, it should not be expected to see a sudden drop in the skills of maintenance personnel immediately after the tenders were decommissioned. But through the NAMTS, I do not expect that the Navy will notice a degradation in skills of maintenance personnel. In fact, when fully implemented, the NAMTS will be a more effective and better managed qualification program which may even result in an improvement in organic intermediate maintenance skills.

            The BFIMA concept, NAMTS, and Regional Maintenance concepts were necessary measures taken by the Navy to ensure forward deployed ships maintain a comparable level of self sufficiency and sustainability despite the decommissioning of all but three fleet tenders. Since these concepts are focused on reducing infrastructure and lowering maintenance costs, their implementation should support a high level of fleet readiness in the absence of the tenders. But their effectiveness may not be realized for several years when BFIMA and NAMTS trained sailors are the predominant intermediate maintenance repair force.

GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS

AIMD            Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Departments

ARG               Amphibious Ready Group

ARGIMA       Amphibious Ready Group Intermediate Maintenance Activity

BFIMA          Battle Force Intermediate Maintenance Activity

BG                 Battle Group

BGIMA          Battle Group Intermediate Maintenance Activity

BRACC         Base Realignment and Closure Commission

BUPERS        Bureau of Naval Personnel

CVN              Nuclear Powered Aircraft Carrier

IMA               Intermediate Maintenance Activity

IMAV            Intermediate Maintenance Availability

INACT 30      Inactive Status with 30 day activation requirement

LHA               Amphibious Assault Ship

LHD               Amphibious Assault Ship

MRC              Major Regional Contingency

NAMTS         Navy Afloat Maintenance Training Strategy

NEC               Navy Enlisted Classification

SBDR             Ship Battle Damage Repair

SUBRON       Submarine Squadron

TRF                Trident Rework Facility

 

 

 

 

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