Looks like quality control problems are not limited to the PRC. See also.

RedNova

Problems on New Ship a Bad Sign, Analyst Warns

Jul. 14--WASHINGTON -- The "poor construction and craftsmanship" Navy inspectors say they found last month aboard a new amphibious ship could be an ominous sign for the service and the U.S. shipbuilding industry as they embark on a host of other ship programs, a veteran naval analyst warned Wednesday.

 

Scott C. Truver, a vice president of Anteon Corp., an information technology company based in Fairfax, said a newly disclosed Navy report on the San Antonio, a $1.2 billion helicopter and troop carrier scheduled to join the fleet this fall, "seems to be particularly expansive in outlining numerous problems and shortcomings."

 

Inspectors said they found such deficiencies as hazardous wiring, uninstalled ventilation and a crash-prone engineering control system. Though the Navy expects to take possession of the ship in August, the inspectors said the San Antonio is not ready for its crew to come aboard.

 

The vessel will be based in Norfolk and is the first in a line of 12 new amphibious ships the Navy has ordered.

 

Truver and other analysts interviewed Wednesday said that because the San Antonio is the first ship in a new class, it's not surprising that inspectors found so much to criticize.

 

The designs of such lead ships typically have bugs that have to be worked out as construction crews translate paper drawings into steel bulkheads and passageways, they said.

 

Truver recalled working on one new ship in which a team of welders inadvertently used a set of upside-down blueprints; inspectors later found stanchions intended to hold television sets in a lounge area were protruding from the floor rather than hanging from the ceiling.

 

First-in-the-line problems are particularly prevalent on surface ships such as the San Antonio, said Joseph F. Yurso of Virginia Beach, a retired Navy engineering duty officer and former commander of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

 

A nuclear-powered submarine or aircraft carrier receiving its first exam from the Board of Inspection and Survey generally gets fairly high marks, Yurso said. Some in the surface force argue that's because the Navy is more willing to spend freely in designing and building those kinds of ships, he added.

 

"I can't explain why, but the amphibious ships always seem to be at the end of a food chain, whether we're talking about repairs or parts," Yurso said. "I spent 30 years in the Navy, and I never could really comprehend that."

 

Still, Truver said, the tone of an eight-page memo on the San Antonio sent by the Board of Inspection and Survey to top Navy leaders seems tougher, and many of the problems it identifies are more severe than normal.

 

And as the Navy tries to replace today's fleet with a smaller but more capable force, the apparent problems with the San Antonio are particularly troubling, he added.

 

With fewer warships being produced, "engineering and production skills will almost assuredly atrophy. And problems like these might increase rather than decrease," Truver said.

 

He added that it's "interesting" that the inspection "was even attempted, given the numerous references to 'inoperative equipment' and 'incomplete installation.'"

 

Marcus Corbin, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said Pentagon officials have a long history of tolerating first-in-the-class ship deficiencies.

 

"In developing virtually anything, there can be bugs," he said.

 

But a variety of independent studies have concluded that the military is far more willing than commercial customers to accept such problems.

 

"The Defense Department is completely failing to enforce commercial standard practices," Corbin said.

 

Yurso said the San Antonio's builder, Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, probably should have discovered and corrected many of the estimated 15,000 deficiencies found in the inspection before they presented the ship to the Board of Inspection and Survey.

 

"But it's not unusual for a first surface ship to have an awful lot of findings," he added. "Most of them are correctable within a reasonable period of time."

 

Yurso said inspection board members are expected to find and report all of a new ship's flaws.

 

"It is their role: to make sure they are reporting to Congress and everybody what the condition of the ship is when they look at it.

 

"There is a lot of pressure on a shipbuilder to make dates," he said. "As you get closer to the delivery of a ship, it gets to be a minor nightmare to make sure it all comes together.

 

"The shipbuilder gets put into the position that 'I really don't want to send this out right now; on the other hand, if I don't, I complicate all these other events.'"

 

Analysts said the number of problems discovered on a ship isn't as important as their severity.

 

With commissioning set tentatively for Oct. 1, the San Antonio already is more than two years behind schedule and $400 million or more over its original budget.

 

It will carry a crew of about 360, along with 700 Marines.

 

By Dale Eisman and Jack Dorsey

Well, regardless of whether or not Northrop Grumman can be blamed for the problems with the San Antonio, the company continues to attract success with amphibious shipbuilding ...

 

From eDefense

 

Systems Engineering for Amphibious Assault Ship

Source: Northrop Grumman

Jul. 18, 2005

 

The US Navy has awarded a contract valued at $109.6 million to Northrop Grumman Ship Systems (Pascagoula, MS) for advanced planning, long-lead material, and systems engineering on the LHA® amphibious assault ship program. The total contract value, if all options are exercised, will be $264 million. This is the first LHA® construction-related contract awarded, and the funds will go toward purchasing major equipment and material, as well as advanced planning and systems engineering.

 

The LHA® will replace the LHA 1 class of amphibious assault ships and will have the flexibility to operate in the traditional role as the flagship for an Expeditionary Strike Group, as well as potentially playing a key role in the maritime pre-positioning force future (MPF(F)). As the Navy's Seabasing plan matures over the next few years, the flexibility to operate with the Expeditionary Strike Group and as part of the MPF(F) will make the LHA® a vital cog in the Sea Base.

 

Northrop Grumman has already delivered the USS Tarawa (LHA 1) and seven Wasp-class (LHD 1) amphibious assault ships to the US Navy, with an eighth, Makin Island (LHD 8), currently under construction.

 

The LHA® will be a variant of the gas turbine-powered LHD 8. The one key difference of the LHA® from the LHD 8 is that it will be an aviation-enhanced assault ship tailored for the US Marine Corps' future Aviation Combat Element centered on the short-takeoff/vertical-landing (STOVL) F-35B Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey.

Troubled ship San Antonio joins Navy's fleet

 

A report earlier this month said the ship had bad wiring, cable deficiencies as shown above, inadequate ventilation, corrosion, safety deficiencies throughout and “poor construction and craftsmanship standards.” U.S. NAVY

 

 

By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot

© July 21, 2005

 

NORFOLK – The Navy quietly accepted delivery Wednesday of the amphibious ship San Antonio despite a highly critical report earlier this month from its own inspection board warning not to do so until significant problems were fixed or waived by the chief of naval operations.

 

In a small morning ceremony on the bridge wing of the new helicopter and troop carrier – the first in its class of 12 sister ships – the Navy took possession from Northrop Grumman Ship Systems in Pascagoula, Miss., saying remaining work will be completed and the deficiencies corrected.

 

The Navy anticipates moving the crew of 360 aboard next month and is prepared for the ship to be commissioned into service in late October or early November, according to shipyard and Navy officials.

 

The 684-foot, 24,900-ton amphibious transport dock, is to be based in Norfolk.

 

In a statement released by the Navy Sea Systems Command in Washington, the San Antonio, also known by its hull number of LPD-17, received “satisfactory scores” during its sea trials for seven graded demonstrations. Those tested main propulsion, engineering and ship control systems, mission systems, combat systems, damage control, food service and crew support.

 

The average score was .92 of a possible 1.0, the Navy said.

 

“As summarized best by the Board of Inspection and Survey, “San Antonio is a highly capable platform with great potential for future service to the fleet,” said Shirley Copeland, a spokeswoman for the command.

 

On July 8 a Navy inspection board report to Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations, said the ship was plagued by bad wiring, inadequate ventilation, corrosion, safety deficiencies throughout and “poor construction and craftsmanship standards.”

 

The ship “will be plagued by electrical and electronic cable plant installation deficiencies throughout its entire service life if currently-planned corrective actions are not complete,” the report continued.

 

Watertight integrity is compromised throughout the ship by numerous cable crossings through decks that may never be corrected, it said.

 

Photographs obtained this week by The Virginian-Pilot show some of the electrical cable problems the inspectors disclosed in their report.

 

“The board recommends the CNO authorize (the sea systems command) to accept delivery provided all starred deficiencies have been corrected, or waived, by CNO prior to acceptance,” it concluded.

 

There were 37 starred items in the report, citing everything from a crash-prone engineering control system to incomplete sprinkler systems in the berthing compartments.

 

A new memorandum of agreement, signed just before the Navy accepted the ship, is designed to ensure the ship’s major problems are fixed.

 

“Both the government and the shipbuilder agreed the corrections that need to be made that were cited by the Inserv Board will be made and the ship is ready to go,” said Brian Cullin, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman in Washington.

 

Acceptance of the ship by the Navy is an administrative commissioning, Cullin said, that will allow its commanding officer to take the ship to sea for various examinations and tests as the crew becomes certified.

 

While the San Antonio’s builders have been criticized for being two years late and more than $400 million over budget, Cullin pointed out that his company was not involved in its early construction.

 

The keel for the ship was laid in December 2000 at Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans, with delivery expected by September 2003. Funding delays, schedule changes and construction issues caused the completion date to slip.

 

Northrop Grumman then acquired Avondale and Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula in 2002 and moved the ship from New Orleans to Pascagola in November 2004, where work continues to complete it.

 

“We were up front about this,” Cullin said. “This ship has had extraordinary challenges. It was at risk of being canceled early on and it has been a constant process trying to work through those.”

 

Since acquiring the new shipyards and the San Antonio, Nortrop Grumman has taken its work force from New Orleans through significant changes in the last three years to improve its skills and correct the ship’s problems, Cullin said.

 

“Northop Grumman is aggressively completing correction of these items,” he said.

 

“The Inserv Board’s function in life is to find out everything that needs to be right before a ship enters the fleet and that’s exactly what the Inserv did.”

 

Despite the inspectors report, the ship came through builders trials and acceptance trials with the lowest number of major deficiencies than some previous first-of-class warships, Cullin said.

 

The final cost of the ship cold reach $1.85 billion the Navy said. Its original cost was to have been about $830 million.