Navy official backs changes in ship overhaul process

The Navy must make sweeping changes in how it overhauls ships to maintain high levels of fleet readiness, according to Vice. Adm. Charles Moore.

Moore, deputy chief of naval operations for fleet readiness and logistics, said Tuesday that he was overseeing a yearlong maintenance review that likely will lead to those changes. "We do not envision less maintenance, we envision a different approach to maintenance," he said.

The Navy currently has four shipyards, located in Bremerton, Wash.; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Kittery, Maine; and Portsmouth, Va.; which employ thousands of civilian government workers and spend billions of dollars annually maintaining the fleet. Moore said he had yet to discuss reducing the number or size of the shipyards, but added it would likely come up during the review.

The Navy wants to streamline shipyard operations as part of a larger effort, known as the Fleet Response Plan, to change how the sea service operates around the world. The plan, which the Navy began implementing last fall, calls for moving away from a schedule of six-month sea deployments and preset training and maintenance periods in favor of more flexible schedules that could mean ships will be sent to sea more often for shorter times.

Moore said Navy leaders are "mystified" by current maintenance operations that require overhauls as soon as ships return from sea and that can take six months to a year to complete. Those schedules often mean that a ship at the peak of its readiness with a trained crew is suddenly taken out of commission. One option Navy leaders have discussed is varying the lengths and times of ship maintenance so they could be called back into service more quickly.

"We believe we can maintain the readiness, maintain the ship, not keep it off-line so long and spend less money. We are absolutely convinced of this," Moore said.