When any new, complicated system, whether a ship, airplane, or guided missile, is first subjected to an evaluation by one of the military services, a number of design deficiencies become apparent. Many deficiencies do not surprise the designers; they are expected and are attributed to incorrect theoretical conclusions caused by erroneous assumptions, excluded unknown factors, and human error.
The U. S. Navy presumably recognizes these limitations and tries to minimize gross errors when conceiving and designing its ships. The Ship Characteristics Board (SCB) prescribes the characteristics of a future ship. The Ship Systems Command (formerly the Bureau of Ships) designs the ship to meet the SCB characteristics. Consider, then, an evaluation of the ship design process under the present system.
Naval ship design in recent years has been distinguished by recurring strengths and weaknesses. The strengths are the sturdy hulls, excellent damage control and safety features, and reliable engineering plants that make naval ships hard to sink and unusually reliable when steaming from one place to another. The naval architect, the marine engineer, and the mechanical engineer, doublechecking themselves in the laboratory, excel in designing these inherent qualities into naval ships.
The weaknesses usually are discovered by the people who operate the ship. The operators’ predominant complaints are poor arrangement or location of equipment, insufficient quantities of equipment, and equipment unsuitable for its intended function. These complaints are manifested by hundreds of government-responsible deficiencies that are discovered during acceptance trials and service evaluations. They are also manifested by scores of requests by prospective commanding officers for changes to the building specifications of their ships. Despite decades of experience, current ship construction still reflects such basic errors as hazardous refueling station arrangements, inadequate interior communications, and ordnance handling equipment that is dangerous and unreliable.
Obviously, a serious problem results when ships are built with design deficiencies. The problem is compounded by the difficulty of correcting a defect during construction. Changing the design of a Navy ship, being built in a private yard, to remedy a defect is costly, and frequently impedes construction progress. It is often cheaper to let the builder construct the ship with an acknowledged defect, correcting it later in a naval shipyard. The latter alternative generally involves ripping-out and rebuilding affected portions of the ship. Either alternative can be terribly expensive.
In many cases the prohibitive expense does not justify the resultant increase in combat readiness. In other cases administrative inertia delays decisions on pending design changes. Meanwhile, the ship’s construction progresses to a point where cost again becomes prohibitive. In any event, it is clearly in the best interest of the Navy to design the ship properly, before construction begins.
Viewed by the forces afloat, one reason these deficiencies occur is that the operators are not represented when the ship is being designed, Statistics substantiate this contention. In the Ship Design Division of the Ship Systems Command there are usually 25 to 30 engineering duty officers (EDOs), over 200 civilians, and a very few junior line (code 1100) officers. It seems reasonable to assume that the engineering duty officers and the civilians do not have the practical knowledge and experience equivalent to that acquired by general line officers through years of sea duty. It is also reasonable to assume that the handful of junior line officers have little influence on the design of a ship. One can then reason that many design errors are attributable to designers who are handicapped by a lack of knowledge of the operators’ requirements and desires.
One can argue that the Ship Characteristics Board represents the operators. This is true, but only to the extent that the Board prescribes characteristics. The Board does not get involved in the mechanics of ship design, except in special cases. It can also be argued that the Ship Systems Command encourages reports and recommendations from the Fleet through correspondence. Yet, apparently this method of communication is ineffective because many design flaws are continually repeated in succeeding classes of ships.
Why are the forces afloat excluded from representation when a ship is designed? In determining the reasons, consider the position of the design agency. U. S. Navy Regulations assigns responsibility to the Ship Systems Command for the design of naval ships. Designing a ship is a difficult and esoteric process, a constant compromise between speed, displacement, armament, protection, endurance, space, and stability. Changing the design in one area may affect a ship’s characteristics in apparently unrelated areas. Design personnel require years of specialized education and training not normally within the sphere of education of the general line officer. The designer must also be cost-conscious, and he is under steady pressure to economize. Often the forces afloat are suspected of wanting a “gold-plated” ship regardless of the expense involved in building it—probably the biggest reason is historical precedent. The general line officer has rarely been involved in the technicalities of ship design. Design has always been within the realm of the engineering duty officer and the civilian specialist, and they may be reluctant to admit the general line officer into their closed circle.
Consider now the background of a typical line officer qualified to participate in ship design. To begin with, he will have had a formal engineering education on a plane equivalent or superior to that of many ship designers, thanks to the Navy’s emphasis on postgraduate education. So he will certainly be conversant with the engineering disciplines. He will obviously be familiar, after years of sea duty, with the realities, demands, and rigors of the shipboard environment. He will embody a perfect blend of engineering knowledge tempered with practical experience. He will be eminently qualified to aid and complement the classical ship designers.
Airplane builders would never design an aircraft without the constant advice of a project pilot. Similarly, a naval ship design team should have a full-time project operator, a sea-going line officer. General line officers, qualified by extensive sea duty and a postgraduate engineering education, should be assigned to the Ship Design Division of the Ship Systems Command. Specifically, a line commander as an assistant to the head of the Division, plus line lieutenant commanders to the various type desks, would be an effective distribution. They would act as advisors and consultants to their EDO contemporaries; before any design is approved, it would be placed under their scrutiny for appraisal and review. They would be rotated frequently, fresh from sea-duty billets, so that the designers would be privy to the latest needs and desires of the Fleet. Inevitably, ship design would evolve reflecting the voice of the Fleet.
Another vital requirement is that the designers and the operators must talk to each other. It is a rare occasion when the forces afloat meet the people who design their ships. One method to rectify this paucity of communication is to schedule periodic conferences between designers and forces afloat representatives. The designers would periodically journey to major ports to confer with type commander, unit commander, and individual ship representatives. They would come to feel the pulse of the Fleet through the flow and exchange of ideas, criticisms, problems, and recommendations. A mutual respect and a spirit of reciprocal trust, co-operation, and confidence would be engendered. The benefits of such a “grass-roots” program are incalculable. The designers would return to their drafting boards with a clearer appreciation of the needs of the Fleet. Conversely, the Fleet would man their ships understanding why their ships are designed as they are, and would be less inclined to damn and condemn the designers.
But to justify these departures from current policy, it must be recognized that our ships are not as good as they could be because of design deficiencies. It must also be recognized that there is a lack of communication and understanding between designers and the operators. That is to say, the problems must be recognized and acknowledged before seeking a solution. Not all our design problems fall into the categories discussed above, and other solutions must be explored as well. When the Navy accepts and implements a policy of involving the forces afloat in the design of its ships, there can be but one result: an extraordinary improvement in the combat readiness of the Fleet.
Despite the design deficiencies discussed earlier, most of the self-contained specifications, prescribing how the ship must be built, are excellent. And they are improving with each succeeding class of ship. But the unhappy fact is that surface ships are being built for the Navy today that have hundreds of specification violations. The Navy is not receiving the quality it is paying for.
This problem has become increasingly serious. It is manifested by hundreds of builder- responsible specification violations brought to light both before and after the ship is delivered. Countless more remain undetected. The problem came to public attention after the Thresher sinking. The unclassified congressional hearing report revealed there were potentially dangerous defects in Thresher’s construction, caused by non-conformance with specifications.
In late 1963, the Chief of the Bureau of Ships issued an instruction re-emphasizing the requirement for mandatory conformance with specifications in the construction, conversion, repair, and overhaul of ships. A vigorous quality-control program has been implemented in the submarine building program. An equivalent program is not universally evident in the surface-ship construction program, and this essay is addressed to this problem.
The reasons that specifications are not being met are manifold. Basically the problem must be analyzed from two aspects—why the violations occur in the first place, and why the Navy does not recognize and demand correction of the violations before the new ship is accepted.
Until recently, the principal reason for non-conformance with specifications was the belief that specifications were desirable, but not mandatory, goals. There now seems to be a more general awareness that the specifications are actually minimum standards that must be met or exceeded.
Probably the major reason that violations initially occur is that both the builders and the Navy’s Supervisors of Shipbuilding frequently do not understand the specification requirements. As stated earlier, the specifications are steadily improving, and they require more stringent and demanding procedures, tolerances, and materials. After signing a fixed-price contract, a builder is often shocked and appalled when he first realizes the newer specifications require him to expend far more money and manpower to accomplish a given task than it had on an earlier ship built under “looser” specifications. Because he is trying to make a profit on the ship, he may be tempted to choose the older, cheaper (albeit unsatisfactory) method, unless the Supervisor enforces the specification requirement.
The lack of understanding is evident in working drawings that a lead yard evolves from the specifications and contract plans. If a lead yard has a shortage of qualified personnel who are able to develop the working drawings, the drawings will be replete with specification violations. Normally the plans are reviewed by the Supervisor’s staff, but few infractions are discovered at this stage. There are too many blueprints and too few qualified personnel in the Supervisor’s office for more than a cursory examination. The problem is compounded when follow yards buy the working plans from the lead yard. Ever ready to economize, the follow yards may allow scant time to validate the working drawings in the hope that they conform to specifications by virtue of earlier screening by the lead-yard Supervisor. This reliance on purchased, erroneous drawings has often proven disastrous for the follow yards.
The Navy is not obligated to extricate the builder from these dilemmas. The builder is responsible, from start to finish, for delivering a ship that conforms to specifications. Concurrently, the builder is solely responsible to develop and validate his working drawings so that they conform to specifications. But the Navy is failing through an inconsistency in perceiving specification violations when they occur.
Consider the present Navy methods for inspecting new ships before accepting them. Civilian Navy inspectors at the building yard inspect the ship from the time the keel is laid until delivery. The Board of Inspection and Survey inspects the ship during intensive preliminary acceptance and final acceptance trials to adjudge if the ship conforms to specifications. The ship’s crew inspects the ship. And finally, the builder is expected to employ an in-house quality-assurance program. Still, hundreds of specification violations are not discovered until preliminary acceptance trials, and many violations never are detected. Where has our inspection/quality-assurance program failed?
It fails first because the Navy does not employ enough inspectors—six is the typical number assigned to a 35-million-dollar ship. So few inspectors cannot adequately determine if all areas of the ship conform to specifications. The magnitude of the specifications themselves precludes a comprehensive understanding of what is required. How, for instance, could six men be expected to assimilate 675 pages of detailed specifications, amended with hundreds of change orders and field change orders? Further, the specifications invoke hundreds of standard military specifications and scores of contract plans, contract guidance plans, and standard Ship Systems Command plans. It is not at all surprising that the builder and the inspectors are often unaware of the numerous facets of the specifications.
The Navy’s current solution to assure conformance with specifications is to require the builder to establish a rigid in-house inspection system. The builder must, in effect, inspect himself; further he must do it so that the Navy can validate his inspection system by spot checking. The theory is commendable but unproven.
Consider next whether the Board of Inspection and Survey effectively discovers specification violations. The answer here is a resounding affirmative. The Board is composed of able, experienced officers who are experts in ship design and construction. They subject the ship to a comprehensive and painstaking inspection, which is the basis of their decision whether the ship is acceptable to the Navy. However, they have a limited time available to survey the ship, so they depend heavily upon cumulative reports and observations originated earlier by the Supervisor and the nucleus crew. The Board’s reliance on these records and reports stresses the need for a foolproof inspection program during the ship’s construction phase.
A proven method to achieve an effective inspection/quality-assurance program is to augment the Supervisor’s inspection force with selected members of the nucleus crew. These people are the most talented and motivated inspection force available today.* Yet, their potential is not being exploited because of insuperable obstacles. The nucleus crew is forced to operate in limbo. It has no responsibility for the ship before it is delivered. The contract ignores the crew’s very existence. Consequently, it is vulnerable to the whims of the Supervisors and the builders, who in extreme cases can nullify and frustrate the crew’s every effort. This essay does not propose shifting responsibilities. Rather, it advocates an emancipation for the crew by using crew members as inspectors and giving them the tools to do the job. Until this philosophy is consummated, the Navy will continue to suffer because its ships are not built as well as they should be.
One obstacle to better use of the nucleus crew is the lack of space for working and training, which inhibits the productivity, efficiency, and morale of the crew. The builder is not contractually obligated to provide office space or training facilities. Therefore the crew must accept, hat-in-hand, whatever accommodations (however inadequate) the builder gratuitously provides. The crew may board their ship only at the pleasure of the builder, again because there are no contractual provisions. An exacting builder can make life almost unbearable for the crew, and they have no recourse. Finally, the crew is systematically denied access to correspondence, conferences, plans, test memos, and specifications relating to their ship.
It is impossible to understand the irrational Navy policy which prohibits the nucleus crews from retaining a copy of their ship’s specifications while simultaneously urging them to assure a mandatory compliance with these same specifications. There must be a reason for deliberately keeping these people ignorant of how their ship is to be built, but that reason is not apparent. This essay will not speculate what the reason or reasons are. The end result is painfully clear, however. The too-few civilian inspectors—and the nucleus crew, largely unaware of the specification requirements—are unable to discover or recognize numerous specification violations. The Board of Inspection and Survey cannot possibly uncover all these undetected defects. The crew cannot determine if a specification has been violated during the guarantee period between delivery and final acceptance trials, because they do not have a copy of the specifications on board. An almost ludicrous requirement placed upon the commanding officer is that he must report all specification violations discovered during the guarantee period to the Board of Inspection and Survey just prior to beginning final acceptance trials. Just how he does this, without a copy of the specifications to reference, defies all logic. Forces afloat cannot even requisition a copy of the General Specifications for the Building of Ships.
Nucleus crews must be given a vastly expanded role in the inspection of their ships, a role distinguished by significant departures from current practice. The crew should be provided a copy of the specifications and all contract/contract guidance plans; all working plans should be readily available. The Supervisor’s staff should indoctrinate key personnel in the crew to familiarize them with contractual provisions and specification requirements before designating them as inspectors. The end product would be an excellent inspection force.
Another major improvement should be implemented with regard to testing and test memoranda. It is now Navy policy that the nucleus crew may witness all tests of machinery and other equipment. However, the crew usually is not given copies of the test memos until they have been completed and the ship delivered. The crew member is placed in the awkward position of being partially or completely unfamiliar with the requirements or objectives of the test he is witnessing. The obvious remedy is to provide extra copies of all test memos to the crew before testing begins. An added benefit is that the crew can review the memos for compliance with specifications and recommend changes to the Supervisor when needed.
Nucleus crews, to become good inspectors, need more time at the building yard before delivery. The first increment of the nucleus crew should report to the building yard at least six months before the ship is delivered. If less time is available, the crew will be harried by the administrative workload of their own internal organization, preventing them from adequately inspecting their ship. Finally, there should be contractual provisions for the builder to provide sufficient accommodations for working and training.
In summary, the Navy is not receiving ships conforming to specifications, in part because of inadequate inspection facilities. The nucleus crew can provide the needed personnel to help ensure the ships are properly built and inspected. They are available and willing, at no extra cost to the government. The Navy would be remiss not to capitalize on the nucleus crew’s splendid potential to improve the quality of our new naval ships.
Nearly every contract between the Navy and the builder prescribes the ship’s delivery date. This provision implies that both parties agree that enough time is allowed to build, complete, and deliver the ship. The date is not arbitrary; rather it is determined after extensive study and planning by the Navy. The obvious implication is that the Navy wants the ship delivered by a certain date and that the builder is contractually bound to meet that date.
In reality, this date is generally not met, and it usually functions as a reference point to compute the length of time the ship will be delayed. The delivery date occupies the same category held until recently by the specifications—a desirable goal but not a mandatory requirement. For in truth the majority of surface ships are delivered by private builders after the contract delivery date, with the periods of lateness ranging from several days to over a year. Over a recent 30-month period, 62 per cent of the ships delivered to the Navy were late, 26 per cent were on time, and 12 per cent were early. This is a deplorable record. Late delivery is habitually tolerated, and unless changes are made, no improvement can be expected. Contract delivery dates have become a mockery.
These delays sap the strength of the Fleet. The new ships are not available to the type and fleet commanders when they had expected them. The delays are disruptive. Schedules and commitments are scrambled, because many naval activities must provide training, shipyard, and support services before the ship becomes fully operational. The delays are expensive. Private builders have a propensity to blame the Navy for causing the delay. This modus operandi frequently results in the Navy compensating the builder for the extra costs incurred while keeping the ship at the building yard. There are also many hidden expenses, such as the cost of logistic support for the pre-commissioning crew stranded ashore because their ship is not ready.
The reasons for delays are well established —strikes, lack of skilled personnel in all phases of engineering and production, inexperience, and low productivity. Late delivery of both builder furnished and government furnished material is often a contributing cause. Mandatory changes to the specifications often hinder orderly progress and cause delay. These latter factors are most frequently cited by the builder when accusing the Navy of delays. These are the publicized causes. There are other causes that are more subtle.
The private builder’s main incentive is to make a profit. Profit is essential for his survival. Unless he equates making a profit with on-time delivery, he has no incentive to deliver on time. If a builder feels he can make a greater profit by late delivery, it is not inconceivable that he will do just that.
There is a logical rationale to equate profit with late delivery. The builder may decide he will have to pay overtime or hire extra men to make the delivery date. By continuing to work regular hours with his current labor force, he can minimize costs and fatten his profit margin. The ship, of course, is delayed. As added insurance, he might simultaneously blame the Navy and submit a huge delay claim, hoping to receive partial payment when it is later adjudicated. The Navy is so inextricably involved in the ship’s construction that any number of Navy actions or inactions could be construed as a contributing delay factor.
That a builder does have these options illuminates a fatal weakness in naval shipbuilding contracts—there is no impelling incentive to deliver a ship on time, and there is no enforceable penalty for a late delivery. Although penalty payment clauses are common in the general construction industry, there is a consensus that three reasons exclude a similar clause in shipbuilding contracts: (1) The builder would submit prohibitively expensive bids as a hedge against late delivery penalties. (2) The Navy is vulnerable to delay claims, and punitive penalty clauses would provoke the builders to react with extravagant counter claims. (3) The builder will not willingly delay a ship (if the Navy is blameless) because the costs of keeping the ship in the building yard are punitive in themselves.
There are provisions in present contracts to penalize builders who are delinquent in ship deliveries. But these means are apparently not being used. For example, the Navy must determine if a builder is qualified to build a certain type of ship before he is allowed to bid on the contract. Late delivery of previous ships is sufficient cause for disqualification. Yet a builder who has not delivered a ship on time in five years is allowed to bid against a builder who habitually delivers quality ships on time or earlier. One must conclude that past performance is disregarded. The Navy also has the prerogative to terminate a contract because of late delivery. This is rarely done, because it is more expensive and time consuming to complete the ship elsewhere than it is to leave it at the builder’s yard, regardless of the delay.
The Navy has the dilemma of having to rely upon a sick industry to construct the majority of its ships. If the Navy imposes stringent demands and harsh penalties to achieve timely deliveries, it is conceivable that some builders would not survive. This would precipitate vociferous political protests and other anguish, and all kinds of wrath would descend upon the Navy.
Despite the generally poor state of the industry, good ships can be delivered on time, and there are some builders with consistently fine records. The problem is to get the “nonproducers” up to the same performance level. The best way to do this, without violently wrenching the industry, is to write contracts with incentive payments for early delivery. The lure of increased profits is an enticing motivation for the profit-minded builder. These contracts are a proven success in many other Department of Defense procurements.
The second step is to enforce the existing criteria in certifying that a builder is qualified to build the ship he is bidding on. The builders must believe that the Navy is resolutely determined to insist upon satisfactory past performance and present capabilities as prerequisites to receiving future contracts. The builders will be motivated to establish a record for timely deliveries of quality ships. Furthermore, they will be motivated to demonstrate that they have the people and facilities to build the ship, thus providing added assurance of their ability to meet the contract delivery date.
Finally, the Navy must be absolutely certain that its own house is in order. Government-furnished material must be delivered on schedule, decisions must be made promptly, working drawings reviewed and approved expeditiously, and correspondence acknowledged and answered rapidly. Naval bureaucratic inertia is the prime offender when builders blame the Navy for delay.
The current methods and policies of the naval shipbuilding program have been found y lacking. The advantage of lower building costs in private yards is compromised by late g deliveries and non-conformance with specifications. The design of naval ships does not fully reflect the experience, needs, and desires y of the Fleet. An imaginative new approach to the whole concept of building and designing ships is needed now.
This new approach embodies the principle d of using the talents of the forces afloat to complement and supplement the designers and to inspect the builders. It embodies the principle of providing rewards for early delivery and enforcing penalties for late delivery. These principles are not unique. An aircraft builder would not design or construct an airplane without the continual advice of the pilots who will fly it (the equivalent of forces afloat). Incentive-type contracts are standard practice in nearly all defense-oriented industries d except shipbuilding. There is no reason why these same proven principles would not work in the naval shipbuilding program.
It is incumbent upon the Navy, now, to build a better ship—on time.
* See T. B. Buell, “Assignment to New Construction,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July, 1965, pp. 68-77.