the GAO has at em yet again for their stupendous project management abilities!
NOVEMBER 21, 2013 — A Congressionally mandated GAO report finds that the Navy is still accepting ships with large numbers of deficiencies and says that the Navy could learn some lessons from commercial shipowners.
The report says the Navy has experienced significant quality problems with several ship classes over the past several years.
It has focused on reducing the number of serious deficiencies at the time of delivery, and GAO’s analysis shows that the number of deficiencies—particularly “starred” deficiencies designated as the most serious for operational or safety reasons—has generally dropped.
However, says GAO, accepting ships with large numbers of uncorrected deficiencies is a standard practice and GAO found that there are varying interpretations of Navy policy with regard to when the defects should be resolved.
“Although the environment in which leading commercial ship buyers and builders operate differs in many ways from the Navy’s, some commercial practices aimed at helping to ensure that ships are delivered with a minimum number of deficiencies may be informative for the Navy,” says GAO. “Throughout the course of commercial shipbuilding projects, significant numbers of quality defects and instances of non-conforming work are identified. However, leading commercial ship buyers and shipbuilders make great efforts to ensure that these issues are resolved prior to delivery. Further, commercial ship buyers establish clear lines of accountability and hold their personnel responsible for ensuring the shipbuilder delivers a quality vessel. While commercial ship buyers focus on regularly witnessing in-process work through roaming patrols and impromptu inspections, Navy processes at the shipyards place less emphasis on in-process work. Moreover, leading commercial shipbuilders have strong quality management processes that track quality problems to the worker or supervisor level. Navy shipbuilding contractors have historically experienced difficulties in holding production workers and supervisors accountable for their work, but some of the shipyards reported they are making progress on increasing worker accountability.”
To improve the construction quality of ships delivered to the Navy, GAO is recommending, among other things, that the Navy clarify policy on when deficiencies should be addressed, provide guidance on contract quality requirements, and assess applicability of certain commercial practices to Navy shipbuilding.
We’re ending up with ships that require shipyard periods immediately after being delivered!
NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF EFFING BLOODY BOZOS!
