Newport News Weld Inspection Scandal.

[MKSheppard]

Link

The U.S. Navy Comes Apart At The Seams

June 1, 2009: The U.S. Navy has yet another ship building disaster on its hands. This time it involves quality control, or, rather, that lack of same. A weld inspector at the Newport News shipyard was recently found to be falsifying the inspection of welding jobs on four Virginia class submarines and a Nimitz class carrier. Some 10,000 welds have to be re-inspected, as these are how many the now dismissed inspector handled in four years on the job. Each Virginia class sub has about 300,000 welds that have to be inspected. Normally, only a few will fail inspection and have to be redone.

A few defective welds can cause the loss of a submarine, or serious damage aboard a carrier. Two methods are used to inspect welds, magnetism, or a special liquid. It's easy to fake the inspection, thus these quality control inspectors must be carefully selected.

For several decades now, the navy has had growing ship construction problems, with poor quality, delays and inflated prices making it difficult to maintain the size and effectiveness of the fleet. One of the major problems is the practice of "low balling." This is where the shipbuilder gives the navy a very low estimate of what a proposed ship is going to cost. Then, when construction is under way, costs creep up, often resulting in the ship costing more than twice the original estimate. When this practice began, after World War II, it was with the cooperation of the navy, that wanted to have an easier time convincing Congress to allow construction of new ships.

For the past decade, the navy has been saying, "no more", while the ship builders say, "OK." But the low balling continues. All current ship building projects over budget. The worst case is the LCS (Littoral Combat Ship), which was to be the poster boy for doing it right. Didn't work out that way. Four years ago, when building plans for the LCS were laid out, each one was to cost $223 million. Now the estimated price is $460 million, and the navy is confident that the ultimate price will be higher. Congress is outraged, and are demanding that the admirals do something.

The real problem is "sole source" procurement of big deck vessels (plus the Navy's penchant for frequently changing design specifications). The problem goes back to when the navy destroyed the Navy Yard system, which was the best check on corruption and carelessness in shipbuilding. How does one bring back quality production, or even prove it can be done better, if there are no government owned ship yards that enable the navy to find out how it can be done better?

The shipbuilding industry will sometimes blame the unions. But Norway, Denmark, Japan, Korea, etc., maintain effective, efficient shipbuilding operations and have strong unions. But the basic notion of having navy-owned yards was so that the service (and the taxpayer) could have an independent "authority" on ship construction and repair.

Examples abound. Back in the '30s, with substantial construction contracts being let again, the Navy placed orders for three very similar classes of destroyers, two to be built in private yards and one in navy yards. There were about a dozen ships all together. The end result was that the navy-built ships came in on time, on budget, and with few teething problems, while the privately built ones ran over in time and money and required some additional work after completion.

Post-World War II, the shipbuilding industry decided it needed the work more than the navy yards did. A series of interesting laws got passed that marginalized the navy yards. One good one was a law that came out of the Virginia congressional delegation that mandated that modernization, maintenance, and repair jobs be done at yards in proximity to where ships were based. This was very good for Newport News, but meant that navy yards in places like New York, where there were usually no ships based, became "uneconomical." We've only got a few navy-owned yards now, and none of them do construction.

The private shipbuilders and the shipping lines, plus their local members of Congress, have also contributed to the decline of the merchant marine, though they blame the unions, OSHA, EPA, "cheap foreign labor," etc., and so forth. Books have been written about this (like "The Abandoned Ocean: A History of United States Maritime Policy"), but not enough of the right people read them, or wanted to act on the evidence presented. The problem, as in so many areas of military procurement, is politics. The defense budget is seen as a source of votes, above all. No politician will admit it, but the facts speak for themselves.

[Tanasinn]

I suppose he should consider himself fortunate; in China, they probably would have put him in front of a firing squad.

[MKSheppard]

I suppose he should consider himself fortunate; in China, they probably would have put him in front of a firing squad.

I'd put him in front of a firing squad myself too; we lost two SSNs most likely due to defects in manufacturing; and I don't want to lose another one.

[TimothyC]

Can someone tell me why we shouldn't nationalize the yards, and bring back all of the fleet construction under direct navy control?

[Big Phil]

Can someone tell me why we shouldn't nationalize the yards, and bring back all of the fleet construction under direct navy control?

There's no good reason not to bring at least some construction back under Navy control, but that wouldn't stop the cries of THAT'S SOCIAL/NAZI/COMMU/FASCISM!!! from folks on the right.

[Lonestar]

Can someone tell me why we shouldn't nationalize the yards, and bring back all of the fleet construction under direct navy control?

We actually already have existing Navy Yards, we just do not do any actual construction in them.

(also, I believe much of the work is actually done by private shipyard employees who happen to use Navy facilities, although I could be wrong)

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

This seems rather reminiscent of the fights between Rickover and the commercial yards (which one again?) over the quality of the manufacture of submarines. I would imagine he's rolling in the grave now.

[Lonestar]

This seems rather reminiscent of the fights between Rickover and the commercial yards (which one again?) over the quality of the manufacture of submarines. I would imagine he's rolling in the grave now.

I believe it was with Electric Boat.

[tezunegari]

One of the major problems is the practice of "low balling"

I take the numbers shown to the Congress are labeled "estimates" and not as the definite "final price tag" then?

In my complete ignorance of the American judicial system I ask this:
Would it be possible to create a law that binds manufacturers to their "estimates" given to the Congress? A concession might be to stay within 110% of the estimates. If they can't then the Navy still gets their ships but the manufacturer has to pay the difference himself.

And that weld inspector should be banned from ever working in ship construction ever again should he get out of jail while still able to work.

[KrauserKrauser]

To be fair, budget overruns in defense contracting is fairly standard practice and not simply because all of the contractors are out to make a buck.

The Defense Department in its quest to obtain more funding through Congress to work with the current hot button issue will make drastic changes to the designs and operational requirements presented to the contractors well after the contract has been approved and work has begun.

This is simply poor workmanship combined with a lack of oversight in the construction process and if they keep it up hopefully the military will be able to enforce their threats and move the construction work to navy owned yards.

[Lonestar]

I take the numbers shown to the Congress are labeled "estimates" and not as the definite "final price tag" then?

In my complete ignorance of the American judicial system I ask this:
Would it be possible to create a law that binds manufacturers to their "estimates" given to the Congress? A concession might be to stay within 110% of the estimates. If they can't then the Navy still gets their ships but the manufacturer has to pay the difference himself.

And that weld inspector should be banned from ever working in ship construction ever again should he get out of jail while still able to work.

Typically the contractor will say "we will build the ship/airplane/missile system for about x, and we will add 10% to the cost so we can turn a profit."

The reason why they say about x is because the government has a tendency to make major requirement changes mid-stream, and since that 10% to the cost is the profit for the contractor, they aren't going to really fight the changes.

Fixed-price contracts are rare because of that.

[Beowulf]

Fixed price contracts would work if we didn't change the contract every 3 months. Which ship was it that they had to rip out half of the work because we changed the building standards on them mid-way through?

[Surlethe]

Is there any rational reason the Navy changes the contracts so frequently? It seems at first blush that if we thought through a ship design, finalized it, and stuck to it, we'd have a cheaper procurement process and a stronger navy. I mean, it's not like we're sending unseaworthy designs to private shipyards, right?

[Lonestar]

Is there any rational reason the Navy changes the contracts so frequently? It seems at first blush that if we thought through a ship design, finalized it, and stuck to it, we'd have a cheaper procurement process and a stronger navy. I mean, it's not like we're sending unseaworthy designs to private shipyards, right?

If the Navy Blogosphere is to be believed(and there are one or two really good ones, such as the USNI blog and Information Dissimination) in the case of the LCS the Navy started with very vaguely defined criteria, and when the contractor started to head in the direction they thought would be most efficient the "oh by the way..." syndrome set in. In otherwords, the Navy had not finalized a ship design when the contractors began building them. And once a clear picture emerged as to what the contractor was doing, then it changed.

Adding to the fun: While everyone is complaining about the cost of the actual LCS, not many in the public eye seem to be complaining about the rising costs of the LCS mission modules. Remember, if you're making changes to the LCS you're going to have to make changes to the modules that allow the LCS to perform different tasks.


By the way, it's been noted that the Naval War College has basically stopped giveing training on budget and acquisition to the officers going through it. We have naval officers working in programs with no training on budget and acquisition.

[KrauserKrauser]

For a good depiction of the circus that is military procurement I suggest the movie "The Pentagon Wars". I am not entirely certain of it's factual accuracy but my mom who worked for the Navy as a civilian contractor for 36 years thought it to be quite indicative of the shit that goes on.

You'll notice that most of the fuckups come from the brass getting a "Great New Idea!" and then demanding changes be made to fit the newly assigned role to the already agreed upon design.

[Beowulf]

Possibly related to the weld scandal:

Crack found in hull of submarine Toledo

By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jul 21, 2009 14:49:53 EDT

Sailors discovered a crack in the attack submarine Toledo prior to the boat getting underway in Connecticut, which will likely lead to inspections of other submarines, according to a Navy spokesman.

Crew members last Friday discovered a 21-inch crack in the topside hull, as well as a corresponding one-inch crack in the pressure hull that would have leaked water if the ship was submerged, the spokesman said.

“The submarine was pierside in New London,” said Lt. Patrick Evans, spokesman for Submarine Group 2. “The Navy is conducting additional tests to determine the extent of the crack and the proper procedures to repair it.”

The width and location of the crack were not yet available.

“After a cause is determined, other submarines will conduct similar inspections,” he said.

Because of the one-inch crack in the pressure hull, “water would have entered Toledo if submerged,” Evans said.

He said the cracks were found prior to getting underway for local operations.

Toledo is assigned to Submarine Development Squadron 12 and was built at Newport News Shipbuilding and commissioned in 1995.

In 2007, Toledo was one of several Navy ships needing close re-inspections after faulty welds were discovered on non-nuclear internal piping in new Virginia-class submarines.

It is not clear if the recently discovered cracks on Toledo are connected to the problems discovered in 2007.

Other Los Angeles-class subs that needed weld re-inspection were the Oklahoma City and Newport News.

As of late May, an investigation by Naval Sea Systems Command into the faulty welds was not concluded.