Specification Innovation as a Part of Building an Affordable Fleet

Abstract

The cost of Navy ships is escalating at an unsustainable rate. A surprisingly large part of this escalation is attributable to Standards and Specifications. The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) has undertaken several activities to accomplish cost reduction with the goal of building an affordable fleet. One of these, Documents for Ship Cost Reduction (DSCR), is the focus of this paper, and it seeks to answer a key question: Without reducing ship capability, can unnecessary costs be driven out of the specifications for building, qualifying, and maintaining our ships? Working closely with industry, NAVSEA has developed an approach to seek out superfluous requirements and to streamline others as two ways to reduce costs. A risk analysis based on the DoD risk methodology has been tailored specifically for the DSCR and incorporated into the process flow, which dramatically reduces the time it takes to implement specification changes. The Navy-industry team has investigated the costliest to comply with "Top 10" specifications. These have been investigated using the DSCR process and the first specification changes have been identified and are being implemented.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA522816

Entities

People

  • Joseph W. Coleman
  • Thomas R. Konen
  • Vincent F. Neradka

Organizations

  • Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Alternating Current
  • Best Practices
  • Business Administration
  • Construction
  • Contracts
  • Cost Reductions
  • Costs
  • Engineering
  • Materials
  • Naval Vessels
  • Risk
  • Risk Analysis
  • Risk Management
  • Shipbuilding
  • Specifications
  • Standards

Readers

  • Government Contracting/Procurement.
  • Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.
  • Software Engineering.