Assessment of Surface Ship Maintenance Requirements

Abstract

The Department of Defense is likely to face years of declining resources as the U.S. government grapples with fiscal challenges. These challenges affect every account, including those associated with surface ship maintenance and operations. At the same time, there has been widespread concern that surface ship materiel readiness is declining due to a high pace of operations and a sense that there have been many instances of deferred maintenance. The need to balance fiscal reality and a continued need for ready ships is likely to be an ongoing challenge. The Navy asked researchers from the National Defense Research Institute (NDRI) to accomplish three tasks. First, it asked us to determine the effect of near-term reductions in Operations and Maintenance (O and M) accounts on long-term fleet readiness, specifically Operational Availability (Ao) and Expected Service Life (ESL). Second, it requested NDRI to develop a maintenance requirement concept for each ship class that supports ESL but allows for some risk within the maintenance strategy. It also asked researchers to define the risks to Ao and ESL resulting from the new requirement. The concept should apply to multiple ship classes. Third, it asked researchers to recommend potential strategies to minimize negative effects to Ao and ESL and maintain the largest, most capable fleet possible. Note that the tasking did not request a complete explanation of a particular observed trend; both the study team and the sponsor concluded that this would require a larger effort with a larger amount of data than is currently available. Focus was on characterizing the trends, describing how funding changes might impact these trends, and then suggesting methods to possibly mitigate the impact.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2015
Accession Number
AD1000761

Entities

People

  • Abraham Tidwell
  • Bradley Martin
  • Jerry M. Sollinger
  • Robert W. Button

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Arleigh Burke Class
  • Databases
  • Department Of Defense
  • Engineering
  • Engineers
  • Failure Mode And Effect Analysis
  • Law
  • Naval Operations
  • Naval Warfare
  • Navy
  • Turbines
  • United States
  • Uss Arleigh Burke
  • Uss Chancellorsville
  • Uss Cole
  • Uss Mitscher
  • Uss Monterey

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Economics
  • Naval Mine Countermeasure Systems Development.