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To many an old salt, putting a ship in the yard is an experience more painful than ending a love affair. The efficient fighting machine and the clean, proud home of the sailor dissolves into a noisy, dirty vessel full of airhoses, power lines, and pipes. There is always too much to be done and seemingly too little time to do it. Normal operating functions no longer predominate and the prevailing problem is to effect a transition from operating to overhaul that will infuse the efficiency and effectiveness of the operating ship into the overhaul task.
The effectiveness of an operating ship can be attributed to a time-tested battle or watch bill organization in which each man knows exactly what is expected of him. The frustration felt by the crew as they pass from operating to overhaul comes from being thrust into an environment where confusion is the order of the day. The tasks which the crew is asked to accomplish during overhaul are not greatly different from routine maintenance tasks. The amount of work, however, and the order in which it must be accomplished is of a magnitude and requires a degree of planning that is new and strange to most of the officers and crew. They begin the planning for overhaul with an uneasy feeling; not quite sure how to come to grips with this strange new problem. If they were asked, most would agree that:
• The overhaul and maintenance jobs could be scheduled for accomplishment in the most efficient order.
• Each person should know what he is supposed to do each day and should be assigned to a specific job each day.
• Each person should have a short range goal which he can understand and visualize.
• Division officers, petty officers, and seamen should participate in overhaul planning.
• Long lead-time material requirements should be identified and ordered at the earliest possible time.
• Expenditure of funds should be monitored and problems identified in time to take appropriate action.
• A graphic presentation of the work accomplished and work remaining to be done should be maintained up-to-date.
• Maximum use should be made of available machine accounting systems to reduce
manpower necessary to maintain management records.
Some would want to add requirements to measure progress in terms of manpower- planned-versus-expended, in addition to the “eyeball” estimate of progress. Others would want to establish priorities for accomplishment of various jobs. But, the matter of hoW to achieve these objectives is often beyond the experience of the commanding officer and his department heads.
The standard approach usually is to list all the jobs each head of department wants } to accomplish and set up charts on which the percentage of completion for each job can be shown. There is seldom any attempt to coordinate the scheduling of all jobs to ensure that there is minimum interference between jobs so that a freshly cleaned and painted compartment will not have a bulkhead cut out next week.
Modern management techniques require complete planning of the total job in order to assure completion on time with a minimum expenditure of money, manpower and m3' terials. Complete planning is not new to the officers and crews of the ships entering overhaul. It is the type of planning they are accustomed to do for every battle exercise and training event. Still, when it comes to plan' ning an overhaul, usually the only planning that is done is a bare compliance with the in'
men in the crew or to development of i®' centives and efficient order of accomplishing the total work package. The result of p°°^ planning is usually failure to accomplish a the required jobs, an extension of the over' haul, or both.
The USS Rigel (AF-58) recently completed a yard overhaul in which the officers and ere'' made a concerted effort to employ complete planning and to use modern business tech' niques to manage their own overhaul.
The first objective of the plan was to estab lish an atmosphere in which the whole ere viewed the yard period as an opportunity t0 improve their ship and the conditions undfI which they work. Four months previous t0 the yard period, division officers began d>s cussions to identify those projects the mel1
PROPOSED OVERHAUL JOB
Would like to see accomplished. Initially these discussions were of a general nature and permitted much daydreaming. The men were encouraged to review complaints they had Voiced in the past and to suggest methods of eliminating them. Subsequently, the form shown in Figure 1 was given to all hands, and
figure 1
| p | hah! JLjob | TIME | MAN- | MATERIAL | ASSISTANCE | COMMENTS | |
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| FROM | TO | HAYS | REQUIRED | REQUIRED | ||
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s°me division officers required that every man fiN out at least nine of these forms. At this stage, the objective was merely to start the ’V'en thinking about what they wanted to accomplish, so complete data was not required, forms were passed on to the petty officers, Who reviewed and discussed them, and eliminated duplications. The division officers then received the suggestions of their divi- Sl°ns and, after talking to their men and Petty officers, agreed to a recommended division “package” of work. The division Packages were then passed to department acads to co-ordinate with necessary repairs a°d inspections, and then to be incorporated lnto a department program. Finally, a series °f conferences were held with the commandIng officer for review and approval of each r,‘ajor project. At these conferences it was determined which jobs would be undertaken by ac ship’s force, and which jobs required a yard job request to be written.
"hhe approved projects for the ship’s force 'Vere then sent back to the division officers, Where each job was broken into specific tasks, a,1d the number of men who could effectively employed on each task was determined, etailed data to complete our proposed over- aul jobs were compiled and requisitions for necessary material were prepared, yhhe commanding officer had planned to Se the PERT* programming methods as a
d * pert programming methods are described in t^tah 'n PERT Fundamentals, DOD PERT Orienta- i 0ri and Training Center, U. S. Government Print- g Office 19630-712-769, Washington, D. C.
Overhauling the Overhaul 57
basis for a management system, which would give sufficient visibility in the planning program to assure minimum interference between ships force and yard jobs.
The Department of Defense PERT Orientation and training Center in Washington, D. C., was asked for copies of their Programmed Learning Course in PERT fundamentals. A management assistant was chosen and a special quota for the one-week course at the PERT Orientation and Training Center was obtained for him. Department heads and division officers were given the “PERT Programmed Learning Courses” for home study and for the next few weeks everybody “PERTed” along.
The PERT method provided the visibility necessary to schedule jobs in the proper order to assure minimum interference and to identify interface areas between yard and ship force jobs. Further, it permitted the breaking up of each job into small tasks which provided short range goals for work teams and individuals. By making the PERT charts available in the division spaces, each man could see where his assigned task fitted into the over-all job.
In developing the PERT diagrams, the simple jobs, such as “how to most efficiently refurbish the pilot house,” were tackled first. After many sketches on the blackboard and discussions with petty officers, the jobs that could be done in parallel and those which had to be done in series were identified. The number of men who could work effectively on each job already had been determined. After much sketching and discussion, the simple chart shown in Figure 2 was generated. The com-
Figure 2
CHART-cn REFURBISH PILOT HOUSE
manding officer and his management assistant worked out several such charts with each department head and his division officers, who were then able to develop the PERT charts for their areas of responsibility. Petty officers were involved in identifying the number of men required and the order in which the tasks should be accomplished. The seamen and firemen, meanwhile, looked over the shoulder of the planners, offering suggestions and noting where their work would contribute to the total package. All major yard jobs were included in the PERT diagrams in order to assure that the interface and scheduling of both ship and yard jobs would be meshed, and interference eliminated or accommodated in the planning. Figure 2A is an example of a PERT diagram encompassing both ships force and yard jobs.
The next step was to determine the latest date that each job could be completed. This at first appeared to be a difficult task because only a “start” and “finish” date for the total overhaul period had been published. Nonetheless, the planning team began working backward from the finish date and before long they had picked critical dates on which to “hang” the planning. None of the dates chosen were absolutely correct, but all were well within the tolerance of the planning systems. Having established critical dates for planning, PERT methods made it possible to compute the latest allowable starting date for each job.
When all the PERT charts were completed, it appeared that the commanding officer had approved far more jobs for the ships force than could possibly be accomplished in the time available. In order to determine the total capability of the ship’s force and to aid in efficient scheduling it was necessary to develop a manpower requirements profile for each job, and to fit this profile into a manpower utilization chart which represented the total available manpower.
But because of personnel policies there was no way of knowing how much manpower would be available. Too often the “Ship >n the Yard” was used by personnel planners 3s a manpower pool from which to draw 111
Figure 2 A
BOOMS, BLOCKS AND RIGGING
CHART DI
Po\Vi
tak
tin,
Vcr requirements profile for each job. By lng each task on the PERT chart and plot- g the manpower required on a graph in t, lch the vertical axis represents “men” and horizontal axis represents <fworking days the yard,” a manpower profile for eachjob
DECK
DIVISION | MEM | TOTAL MAM-OATS AVAIL | LEAVE | NAN-OATS AOMIN l SCHOOLS | LOST BE WATCHES k Wt PTTS. | CAUSE OF SICA-CALL k OEMTAL | UMSAEO WORA | MAM-OATS AVAIL (OR PROJECT <t |
FIRST SECOND THIRD Etc | 30 29 22 | mo 1760 1346 | 183 176 135 | 305 305 284 | 122 122 61 | 20 19 14 | 183 176 135 Total | ton 962 696 |
2675 |
Figure 4
°rder to meet any requirement. This looked *^e a stumbling block that could make any realistic planning impossible. About this time a Policy was established, by the type commander, which stated that he would strive to ^prove the personnel stability of his ships.
uh it was added, each ship would have to ac- j;ePt the responsibility to train replacements 0r their inevitable petty officer losses. This Proved to be just what was needed. It was now possible to look forward to the end of the yard period and compute expected losses and establish a schooling and training program 0 enable efficient operation of the ship at the ^nd of the overhaul. The chart shown in l8ttre 3 helped to structure the training pro- S/'ain. With these requirements taken care of, e next step was to identify the manpower in each division that could be expected to be ^ailable for ships force overhaul jobs. The Part shown in Figure 4 helped to determine at manpower.
-ach division officer then went back to his charts and began to construct a man-
was developed. Each manpower profile had an end date which agreed with the latest allowable completion date for the job. When profiles were completed for all PERI charts, they could be viewed as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The division officer could fit them
MANPOWER AVAILABLE
into a graph which represented his total manpower. Figure 5 shows a manpower profile developed for the PERT chart shown in Figure 2. Figure 6 shows planned manpower use for the entire operations division for the whole yard period. The only constraint in fitting the blocks from the profiles into the manpower utilization chart was that the last block in the manpower profile had to be completed be-
fore the latest allowable completion date for the job.
With the manpower utilization chart, the division officer and his petty officers had a planning tool which enabled them to assign specific tasks for completion each week, with
assurance that if they remained on schedule, the entire overhaul would be completed on time.
In developing the more complex PERT charts for jobs which involved both the yard and the ship’s personnel, split responsibility
was avoided as much as possible. It was assumed that if the yard job requests were carefully written the yard would know precisely what was wanted. To prevent mistakes, the yard job orders going to the shops were monitored to assure that instructions were clear. The person who wrote the original job work request was the person responsible for monitoring the job orders to the shops. It was then expected that the “yardbirds” would do their job and the ship’s force personnel would be free to do ship’s work. Ship’s force was required only for final inspection of the yard i jobs and when assistance was requested. This approach seemed to be much appreciated by the yard people and served to eliminate friction and interference.
For several weeks the most valuable tool of the planners was a good eraser and a bottle of correction fluid. Even in the later stages; changes and adjustments were numerous, but having the original plan gave the division officers and the senior petty officers something to change, and when the changes were made they still had a plan. The early recognition of need for flexibility reduced frustration when changes had to be made.
\
MANPOWER UTILIZATION
UNSCHEDULED MANPOWER
The whole planning program developed by the ' • - - ’
ship was presented for comment to the
Cers soon after arrival. After incorporating thefi '' . ... .
and
§e suitable for the UNIVAC U3 computer
to have in the computer a total work
culti
age for the entire overhaul. Many diffi
gOide and in many cases the first indication
TASK | DICTIONARY | 24 | MARCH 1967 | ||
GO 101 -33 | Y | HULL ROUTINE | DRY DOCK HORN | ||
DO 1 fl 0 QMS BLOCKS y (nf)6l~-02) (X) TEST H INCHES | RIGGING | ||||
DOl03-03 | Y | REMOVE | HINCHES |
| |
DOl02-03 | S | C-P OVERHEAD | FR | 100-136 P-S | |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 1 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 2 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 3 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 4 |
DO 102-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NC | 5 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 6 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 7 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | a |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 9 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 1 0 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 11 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 12 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 1 3 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 1 4 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 1 5 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 1 6 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 1 7 ■ |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | i e - |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 19 |
DOl02-06 | Y | HINCH | CARGO | NO | 20 |
Figure 7
The availability of a detailed plan, wherein the total job was reduced to many small tasks with a specific manpower requirement and duration, enabled the rewarding of those who Performed better than expected. It became standard practice to reward a team that completed a task early with special or early liberty for at least one-half of the time they had saved. This served as a tremendous incentive and much voluntary overtime was Worked during the week days so that the various teams would be far enough ahead of Planned work that they might secure early on Friday. Conversely, when a team was behind, or if an individual on that team had not Performed up to standard, Saturday morning Was a regular workday. Rewards and penal- hes for time saved or lost were controlled by the department heads.
Upon entering the yard the crew was 0rganized into six duty sections. The primary requirement for personnel on board was to have an adequate watch to detect flooding or ^es and to provide the minimum security watch. The duty fire party was mustered each r^orning and a fire drill was held each day. 1 he senior petty officers were included in the fire party. The working day was from 0730 tjutil 1630, which permitted a period of divi- Sl°n instruction and still enabled ship’s force Personnel to be on the job when the yard l)e°ple arrived. When the yard was working extra shifts, supervisory personnel remained board to assure that the yard would not e held up awaiting action on the part of the
ship.
n jr ----
°uimandant of the yard and his senior offiCe • - - • ■
- ideas, the senior civilian assistants were nv‘ted to the ship and shown the proposed Vorh package. Shipyard personnel were most lelPful and invited the planners from the >lllP to write their PERT program in a lan- fuasr - . to combine it with a similar program l< lng Worked on by the yard. The objective
Pack;
ies were encountered in keeping the total ackage updated. Nonetheless, it did provide
of trouble came from a computer runoff.
Once the program was established, the problem of monitoring the progress of the ship’s force package with a minimum expenditure of time was tackled. The Rigel has an IBM 401 Machine Accounting System on board for the billing of UNREP supplies. This was dormant in the yard and the machine accountants were to a large extent employed in general Supply Department work. The PERT work package seemed natural for the machine accountants and the IBM 401. A task dictionary was run off and the machine was set up to print the management data required. Figure 7 is a section of the task dictionary. Because of the limitations of the machine it was necessary to code the tasks so that there would be room to print the management information needed. The number/ letter combination in Figure 7, upper left,
Chart No.
66
5
a
5
13
2
5
WEEKLY REPORTS AND
WORK SCHEDULE WEEK OF MARCH 20 1967
SUPPLY
MAN DAYS AVAILABLE THIS WEEK 100
MAN DAYS SCHEDULED THIS WEEK 104
MAN DAYS AVAILABLE FOR UNSCHEDULED JOBS
MAN DAYS AVAILABLE LAST WEEK 110
MAN DAYS SCHEDULED LAST WEEK 92
MAN DAYS UTILIZED ON UNSCHEDULED JOBS 19
EXPEND ITURES
CONSUMABLES 1S50 PAST PERIODS 16099
REPAIR PARTS 125 PAST PERIODS 153
EQUIPAGE 75 PAST PERIODS
ASSIST S F 100 PAST PERIODS
TOTAL EXPENDITURES 1 B1 04 TOTAL ALLOWANCE TOTAL PAST PERIODS 16254
PER CENT COMPLETE
1 PERT EVENT NUMBER
2 PER CENT COMPLETE OR TROUBLE CODE
3 PLANNED STARTING DATE
4 PLANNED FINISHING DATE
5 MAN DAYS PLANNED
6 MAN DAYS ACTUAL
7 CONSUMABLES B REPAIR PARTS
9 EQUIPAGE
10 ASSIST SF
S0217-20 85 320 324 20
S0219-21 100 306 306 2
SO402—03 40 320 321 6
SO6 04 -06 100 22Q 301 a
SO606-07 100 313 313 1
S0708-10 100 314 317 2
SQ710-11 100 313 314 2
50710- 12 100 314 315 4
50711- 13 100 315 315 1
S 0712 - 13 100 315 316 3
50713- 14 A 320 320 12
50714- 15 A 324 324 4
is the code assigned to the task named.
At the beginning of the yard period each department head was required to fill out a form to enable the printing of the Weekly Report and Work Schedule (see Figure 8). On Friday of subsequent weeks he updated his copy of the preceding week’s schedule and turned it over to the machine accountants. | The cards were punched over the weekend | and the runoff for the ensuing week was , available to the commanding officer on Mon' I day morning. Jobs which were “in trouble’ were identified by an “A” in Column 2 of Figure 8.
This system enabled the Commanding Officer to concentrate on those problems where his attention was most required, and eliminated the need for many time-consuffl' ing conferences. The commanding officer was also alerted when a job approached °r exceeded the planned cost. This was accomplished simply by comparing the planned cost with the monies expended to date and the percentage of the job completed. If parts were unavailable or late in arriving, for instance, an “A” was put in the appropriate colum11 and action was initiated to expedite the parts, to reschedule the job or to manufacture the parts locally.
The spare parts problem proved to be the most troublesome and was not fully provided for in the Rigel planning system. Ordering an® receipt of spares should be specific events ifl each PERT diagram. In many cases this leg may be the “critical path” of the entire PER^ chart.
The Rigel completed her overhaul aS scheduled. Morale was excellent during the entire period and all scheduled jobs were completed. The most serious problems aroSe from failure to order parts early enough °r from failure of the manufacturer to produce on time.
The primary effect of the planning progra'1’ seemed to be the increased interest of the eU' tire crew in the progress of the overhaul. Thl5’ of course, resulted in more efficient work. Tf*e short-time “goals” established for each sail°r and the rewards which were possible f°r superior performance enhanced morale.
The feedback and reporting system Pe( mitted early command attention in troublfi some areas and enabled the commanding
le and ntantS'
eekend
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A graduate of George Washington University, Captain Bradshaw studied advance Nuclear Physics at the University of California. Prior to World War II, he served in destroyers and as an enlisted pilot in the air groups of the USS Lexington and Wasp. He was commissioned in 1942 , and, at the conclusion of
World War II, commanded an air group on board ®n escort carrier. He has served on the staffs of the Commanders of both the Naval Air Force, and the Submarine Force of the Atlantic Fleet and on the Jaff of the Commander ASW Forces, Pacific Fleet.
e has served four tours on the staff of the CNO and commanded the USS Rigel (AF-58) prior to his Present assignment as Commanding Officer of the USS Wasp (CVS-18).
°hicer to practice the principle of “Management by Exception.”
The planning system is readily adaptable 0r use with any of the standard PERT comPuter programs.
The writer took command of the USS Wasp \CVS-i8) about midway through her overhaul Period, and after an evaluation of the ship’s 0rce and the yard work in progress, it seemed aPpropriate to implement the PERT management system for the ship’s force work. For a ar§e ship it was necessary to form a PERT CQrnmittee which was made up of the Navi- Sator as management assistant with a representative from each department. Training methods similar to those used in the Rigel Were used in the Wasp. A program was written °r the YUK 5 computer on board the Wasp. 1 tQok about two and a half months to the ship’s force work PERTed and in- a computer program where it could be
Overhauling the Overhaul 63
managed effectively. It was then possible to keep the ship’s force work on schedule and identify problem areas in time to take positive action. The system worked as well on a big ship as it had on a small one. Even though started in the middle of an overhaul, significant benefits were apparent, not only in terms of a better managed program but also in a significant decline in disciplinary problems.
An advantage in having the entire ship’s force make detailed plans comes from the shock effect of causing men at all levels to think seriously and carefully about the overhaul program. The personal involvement which comes from careful planning and the ability to see the plan carried out is believed to be the real reason for the success of this program.
There is much controversy over the reasons that overhauls continually take longer than planned. Blame has been placed on the shipyard, on the type commander, and on the Navy Department in Washington, D. C. Probably there is some fault to find in each area, but it is my firm belief that the only real help is going to come from more careful planning by the officers and the crew of the ship being overhauled. Most of the planning should be done prior to entering the yard. Changes to the basic plan only should be required after the yard period starts. Type commanders must leave the crew on board and maintain them up to strength if the crew is to be expected to accomplish a great part of the overhaul.
★
The alternative is to obtain more funds to pay the high-priced shipyard workers, and to find a management system for the shipyard worker to provide an incentive comparable to that already available to the crew.
irogr3'1’ the eff il. This’ rk.Th* h sail°r ble f°f e.
m pcf’
roiil >h
laiidi"^
Air Support
In October 1943, a British cruiser was proceeding for operations in the Aegean, where the Germans had complete air superiority and were heavily bombing our ships.
An elderly stoker was sitting on a locker blowing up his life belt when a young sailor, whose first trip into the Aegean it was, passed by and asked, What are you fussing about that lot for?” To which the stoker replied,
“You mark my words, son—it is the only air support we’ll get this trip.”
------------------------------ Contributed by Admiral of the Fleet Sir Algernon Willis, Royal Navy
(The Naval Institute will pay $10.00 for each anecdote published in the Proceedings.)