Naval Surface Ship Maintenance An Unconventional Approach to

Naval Surface Ship Maintenance: An Unconventional Approach to Improve Performance LT Darien Sears, USN Prof. John Carroll, Prof Themistoklis Sapsis April 29 2021

Introduction • • • SWO (San Diego) 2 N & System Design and management (SDM) MARMC 2

Agenda • Problem Statement • Maintenance Process • Contributing factors • Two performance approaches • Conclusions 3

Problem Statement Motivation: • • • Ship maintenance inefficiencies – Ongoing effort CNO FRAGO 2019, NAVPLAN 2021 – Mission readiness; depot-level maintenance Upheavals: COVID-19, racial/social, political, economic – Exposing deeper-rooted problems/assumptions – Opportunity to reflect/learn Research Questions: • • • Why is the Navy struggling with overall performance of ship maintenance? What has been the response? What else can be contributed to help tackle this challenge? 4

Surface Ship Maintenance Process Ship’s Force Key Stakeholders RMC Shipyard 5

Contributing Factors Navy & GAO-identified • Performance-centric – – – Unplanned work – Nonadherence to planning process – – Extended deployments Deferred maintenance Resource unavailability/capacity Poor IT infrastructure Navy’s Response: – – Performance to Plan (P 2 P) Surface Team One (ST 1) 6

Contributing Factors Purpose & Vision “It truly gets harder to execute a major CNO-Avail as one team fighting towards a common goal when we are not anchored in the same values, vision, mission and goal” Motivation “A shipyard can have brand new equipment and all the funding, but if their people are not seen, heard, valued, and there’s little to no meaning to their work, other than a paycheck and benefits, they will not be productive, innovative, or safe. ” Systems Thinking Comms & Coord “leaders and workers are not trained to be systems thinkers and understand feedback and downstream effects so that they are no longer unintended consequences” ”do not assume the conversation doesn’t need to be had. Most people are hiding something on the inside that could have made the process a lot smoother if it made its way into the light and was affirmed or clarified” 7

Case Study: Vigor Industrial LLC “It starts with the awareness in the brilliance of each individual… at the end of the day it’s all about love” “The paradox is that caring less about money, and more about people, makes you more money. ” – Mike Pearson, Navy & Puget Sound Ship Repair Executive Vigor Seattle safety record improvement data – Mike Pearson, Navy & Puget Sound Ship Repair Executive 8

Two Performance Approaches OPTION 1 “Fear”= an unpleasant emotion caused by being aware of danger OPTION 2 “Love”= unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another 9

Conclusions • Conclusions – Our system thrives off of quick info flow – Uncomfortable, hard, imperfect – Everyone engaged; Leaders first • Recommendations – Reflect • Where do your thoughts, and actions come from? – How might this be affecting our people and performance? – Discuss • Humble, Open, Transparent – Act • Restructure Avail meetings • P 2 P include proven data on human behavior 10

Questions? 11