The design for the LPD-17 incorporates the ideas of hundreds of the sailors and Marines who will operate the ship in the future. This cooperative process has ensured that when the new amphibious warfare ship enters the fleet, she will be warrior friendly.
Steaming in the littoral off the coast of a Third World country, the LPD-17's knuckle-boom crane operator gets the signal to lift, checks his control and then begins to raise the ship's 11-meter rigid-hull inflat- able boat (RHIB) from its cradle. To minimize radar cross section, the traditional amphibious ship's boat deck hides behind bulwarks in a "boat valley." The operator ensures that the RHIB clears the side and begins to lower it into the water. Even with the seas running at sea state 3 and the massive LPD-17 rolling, the RHIB hardly moves because of its specially designed safety hookup. The crane operator successfully lowers the boat. The two RHIBs will be away shortly, ready to follow the advanced amphibious assault vehicles as they exit the well deck.
Of course, this actual could not take place until 2006, when the USS San Antonio (LPD-17) first deploys, but the evolution will be a success because it has been modeled, simulated, and previewed by the eventual operators of the ship. In fact, this is just one example of the LPD-17's "design-for-ownership" process in which sailors and Marines have played a part in space design, space rearrangement, and process validation. In the past five years, hundreds of future operators, maintainers, trainers, and naval expeditionary warriors have assisted the LPD- 17 design team. Their efforts not only have ensured that the ship and integrated systems will be combat ready, but also have substantiated that the LPD-17 will be "warrior friendly" when delivered to the fleet.
Design for Ownership
In 1996, a Proceedings article entitled "Warrior Friendly" outlined the LPD-17 Program Office's (PMS 317) innovative approach to designing and building the Navy's newest amphibious warfare ship. Recognizing increasing fiscal conservancy and the growing complexity of expeditionary warfare, Team 17 developed a partnership with the future "owners" of the ship, the 21st-- century sailors and Marines. Traditionally, ship-design engineers solicit fleet participation, but in the past this often would "gear up precisely when the design, integration, and construction phases were entering a period of minimal flexibility," sometimes months or even years after contract award.
Many times these "drive by" events did not discover design discrepancies or capture the real needs of the war fighter. Thus, the precommissioning crews often were the first to detect needed changes—at a time when change costs were at their highest. Given the long lead time between planning commencement and ship delivery (almost 15 years in the case of the LPD-17), the design team also could miss developing technologies, and more important, not include systems needed to support new operational concepts. The LPD-17 program team dedicated their design-for-ownership process to overcoming these obstacles and implementing more effective and efficient shipbuilding.
The LPD-17 program started the process in 1995 by inviting fleet and Marine Corps personnel to work with designers to categorize and translate warfighting needs into ship requirements. Specialized groups took the process a step further by helping define these requirements as shipwide functions and then to specific ship systems. There was no intention for ownership input to stop at this point. Instead, Team 17 established a continuous process that would extend from macro to detailed design, from reengineering information flows to a "virtual team" approach to space review, and from concept to production.
Full fleet and Fleet Marine Force participation was essential. The LPD- 17 Program Office defined this as more than just a few officers gathering once or twice to discuss lofty concepts. They invited everyone from flag officers to the sailors on the deckplates, and from hospital corpsmen to the SEALs and explosive ordinance disposal personnel. Equally critical, and unique among shipbuilding programs, they added the fleet Marines and naval support element to the LPD-17 ownership team.
In addition to the Marine officer attached to the program office, Team 17 sought extensive Marine Corps involvement. The designers procured the prototype 21st-century pack and measured the Marines who will transit the LPD-17 passageways with the packs to ensure they got it right. The C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) working group developed a detailed afloat informationtechnology requirement for the ship class. The LPD-17 engineering working group then translated these requirements into system design, exceeding the identified Marine Corps requirements in classified shipboard wide-area network drops, in classified portable computers, radios, phones, and television monitors. This level of detailed participation assimilated Marine Corps requirements long before construction, ensuring a warrior-ready ship.
Design for Ownership Implementation
PMS 317 based the design-for-ownership process on three important elements. First, they sought out and encouraged ownership input. They collected ideas, suggestions, and recommendations from a variety of seasoned experts, all of whom had had recent and relevant operational expeditionary warfare experience. Second, Team 17 added a group of retired naval amphibious warfare experts to work on-site with the design team. These ownership advocates followed up beneficial ideas, contributing the necessary analysis to see the viable recommendations through to final design. Finally, the team emphasized feedback to ownership in presentations to flag and general officers, in exhibits, in articles, and on the LPD-17 web site.
In 1995 and 1996, key Navy and Marine Corps activities reviewed the operational requirements document and then translated these requirements into capabilities that the ship would need to execute its mission. For instance, what functions would the ship perform as the advanced force ship in 21st-century amphibious operations? This broad look at the LPD- 17's role within the littoral and as part of the Marine expeditionary unit (MEU)/amphibious ready group (ARG) organization defined the LPD-17's future as an "ability to provide integrated support across distinctive and significant combat maneuver elements operations—not just to build a hull."
From these initial steps, the design team brought the fleet and fleet Marines together repeatedly to address essential shipboard functional areas. The attendees focused on developing critical maintenance, training, precommissioning, mixed gender, C4I, manning, own unit support, damage control, and naval support element issues that might affect design. Team 17 invited these owners back for additional sessions as the ship's design matured or as naval policy evolved.
Team 17 gathered additional ideas from numerous visits to amphibious ships and the advanced enclosed mast/sensor ship, the USS Arthur R. Radford (DD-968). In one event, 47 Avondale Alliance team members toured the USS Saipan (LHA-2). Although familiar with amphibious ship building, the Alliance design and production engineers walked the ship, talked at length with the crew members, and learned firsthand from those deckplate experts what worked and what did not. Equally important, the team captured the ideas and forwarded them to a specific Alliance team for resolution. To date, more than 2,000 issues reside in the design-for-ownership database.
As the ship's design matured, the design-for-ownership process advanced to assist in additional ways. Ownership played an important role in the LPD-17 integrated process and product development. In this process, individual integrated product teams (IPTs) address specific functional areas such as the hull or the mission. Cross product teams serve to integrate IPT actions and thereby prevent stovepiping. Whenever these IPTs developed design questions or as real-world challenges arose, the onsite design-for-ownership team responded.
For example, the design called for a space that combined well-deck control, ballast control, and conflagration station #5. The Alliance IPT had some general ideas on how to arrange this unique space, but instead turned to the design-for-ownership process for its relevant experience. Given an empty space plan, two sets of fleet and Marine Corps experts arranged the space, reduced two watch stations, and created a proposed design in an initial daylong session. In a follow-up workshop, the Avondale Alliance team presented its resultant version to the groups, who refined and validated the composition. Today's LPD17 well deck/ballast control/conflagration station was designed by the war fighters for the war fighters.
At another time, warriors incorporated real-world lessons into operational architecture. After the successful rescue of Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady, the MEU/ARG commanders recommended combining Navy and Marine command-and-control spaces. In this configuration, both "Blue" and "Green" commanders could access common tactical information and thereby have equal situational awareness. Opened by then-Brigadier General Martin R. Berndt, the MEU commander, and Rear Admiral Wirt R. Fladd, representing the ARG perspective, the team met four times to study recommendations and to develop a design. By defining the functions of the combat information center, troop operations, and tactical logistics center, Navy and Marine Corps owners determined that 85-90% of the time these spaces should remain separate as long as they possess equal access to a common tactical picture.
For the rest of the time, the team recommended a mission war room for planning. In addition, in the combat information, troop operations, and tactical logistics center, they modified the design with smart bulkheads that could be folded to create a single large command-and-control space during mission execution. During follow-on sessions, the owners further refined the form, fit, and function of the space. Two years after the first workshop, many of the same participants returned to validate the results reflected in three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) models. These spaces will display the best thinking of operators and experienced expeditionary warriors, fully complying with Brigadier General Berndt's initial goal of creating a space to support "One Team, One Fight."
By 1999, with the completion of more than 50 events, the Alliance IPTs had incorporated more than 200 fleet and Marine Corps ideas into the design. Another 380 to 500 suggestions had validated the planned LPD-17 design. As detailed design began accelerating toward the production phase, the design-for-ownership process shifted into the "virtual-crew" concept.
Recruiting participants from both coasts, the Avondale Alliance began a series of video teleconferences among design sites and ownership locations. With a designated LPD-17 War Room at Expeditionary Warfare Training Group Atlantic and a PMS 317-sponsored teleconference at Commander, Amphibious Group Three, ship designers in Avondale, Bath, and San Diego interfaced with owners almost on a daily basis. Fleet and fleet Marine experts viewed computer-aided design modeled spaces, examining fan rooms, mooring stations, the pilothouse, or any of hundreds of possible ship spaces.
The virtual crew actually watched as anthropomorphic, ergonomically correct "computer people" walked through these compartments, reached and actuated controls on consoles, demonstrated physical maintenance clearances, and even "looked" to validate window visibility. These sessions are nearly complete, but will continue to ensure that the LPD-17 computer design models are correct from the warrior's perspective.
Benefits
The design-for-ownership and virtual-crew concepts clearly are producing a better LPD-17 design. Equally important, the processes have created a real sense of ownership among the ships' sailor and Marine customers. In addition, by accepting ideas from the talented users of ship and systems, Team 17 has realized many potential total ownership cost avoidances.
Recommendations led to the redesign of debark control, the pilot house, the central control station, the mess decks, the laundry, the ship's dress ship rig, and the shore power connection stations. Ownership suggestions led to the relocation of several consoles and a beam that obscured centerline visibility in the pilot house. Ship's servicemen developed a more efficient path for moving soiled clothing through the laundry. PMS 317's on-site team facilitated the addition of well deck synthetic planking and found a potentially serious, but correctable, flaw in the electric isolation system.
Individual sailors and Marines also have made a difference. A suggestion from a sailor in the USS Arctic (AOE-8) led to an improved pots and pans washer. Fleet Surgical Team Six proposed a redesign to the medical instrument sterilization space that improved process flow and enhanced combat casualty care. Hull technicians, recognizing the proximity of the hull technician shop to a fuel space, recommended relocation of the shop, a change feasible in a computer model but one that would have been too costly after cutting steel structures. A female executive officer recommended adding a sink to the barbershop for hair washing—an incorporated design change. A lieutenant and several signalmen achieved a solution for displaying signal flags on an advanced enclosed mast/ sensor ship, reducing the radar cross-section signature. Boatswain's mates from Amphibious Group Two found a means for the LPD-17 to receive JP-5 fuel at her port side without extensive design change. In many other instances, the contributions of sailors and Marines will enable future crews and embarked landing forces to employ the LPD17 to fight and win.
These ideas also saved dollars. The fleet-approved change from conventional boats to all RHIBs will save more than $1 million in acquisition costs plus the lifetime savings in maintenance, workload, and training. Self-cleaning seawater strainers, electric lube oil, fuel pumps instead of attached pumps, and using a smaller oily water separator saved millions in potential class lifetime costs. Improved corrosion control protective coatings and corrosion resistant fasteners will reduce workload. An added emergency stop to the main propulsion diesel engines will permit reduced manning in engineering spaces. Improvements in food service will advance crew efficiency and quality of life. Overall, millions in total ownership cost avoidances emanated from the ownership process.
Lessons Learned
Design for ownership works! No other program encourages the same level of sustained ownership involvement, is receptive to so many ideas, or has documented everyone who contributed. To date, more than 1,000 personnel have participated. The final LPD-17 design will reflect their impact in every facet. More than 400 of these ideas have led to design changes and improvements. Moreover, no other shipbuilding program has so closely involved the Marine Corps. Design for ownership and the virtual crew have become common fleet and fleet Marine terms.
This process is not easy, and it takes an enlightened, progressive, and open-minded Program Office with commitment from the design teams. Even before starting actual construction, some changes will incur up front, and associated costs could affect the schedule. To be more effective, the process could have started years earlier. Implementation before the formulation of the operational requirements document would have been ideal.
There may be resistance to some owner-recommended changes. An engineer who has worked a design for years may not have confidence in a change originating from someone other than a "qualified" design engineer or naval architect.
Inputs will change. A group of experts in 2000 may second guess the arrangement approved by a virtual crew in 1999. Documenting input and monitoring idea resolution through the database may prevent future questions or debate. In one case, an owner sharply disagreed with a resultant design only to discover that he had been part of the original resolution. The debate quickly ended.
Not all suggestions make the grade. Owners need to understand that all of their ideas will be considered, but that cost, schedule, and other factors will influence the final decision. The suggestion to build LPD-17 100 feet longer would solve a number of design challenges, but after 80% of the ship's design is complete even a good idea can be just too late.
Design for ownership by itself does not necessarily prevent engineering stovepiping. Bringing the users into the design process certainly expands the knowledge base, but program interoperability requires additional collaborative exertions. To meet these challenges, the LPD-17 program participated in the naval expeditionary warfare engineering integrated product team, cooperating with other programs through various working groups to share information. In this venue, the LPD-17 developed compatibility in such areas as the Navy-wide common tactical picture issue, the Marine Corps' advanced amphibious assault vehicle, and the Marine Corps' MV-22 Osprey. When the Marine Corps began planning for its new, improved medium tactical vehicle replacement, the naval expeditionary warfare engineering process ensured that it would fit.
No ship design will ever be perfect. Operational concepts and advanced technologies evolve faster than the designer can design or the shipbuilder can build. But through the design-for-ownership and virtual-crew processes, the LPD-17 will have be more attune to the customer's operational requirements than any previous project. The LPD17 truly will reflect the best talents of the Navy design engineer and the 21st-century naval expeditionary warriors. The USS San Antonio (LPD-17) will join the operating forces in 2004, still warrior friendly.
Rear Admiral Picotte retired from the Navy as Commander, Amphibious Group Two, with 37 years of experience in all aspects of amphibious warfare. He is the vice president for Expeditionary Warfare Program with American Systems Corporation, where he established and directly supports the design for ownership process in PMS 317. Captain King, a senior analyst with American Systems Corporation, has supported the design-for-ownership process since 1996 and facilitates the virtual crew for PMS 317. During his naval service, he served in eight afloat commands, including commanding the USS Fresno (LST-1182).