Military Readiness: Navy's Report to Congress on the Impact of Training and Crew Size on Surface Force Material Readiness

Abstract

Since 2000, the Navy has undertaken a number of initiatives to achieve greater efficiencies and reduce costs. For example, it reduced the workforce requirements for some of its ships and transitioned away from instructor-led training programs to more computer-based training. In June 2010, we reported the Navy lacked a firm analytical basis for some of the reductions it made to ship crew sizes and therefore could not be assured it had appropriately sized its crews to maintain material readiness and accomplish necessary tasks aboard its ships. We also reported the Navy lacked outcome-based performance measures to evaluate the impact of changes to training on trainees? job performance, knowledge, skills, and abilities once they report to their ships and therefore could not fully determine the effectiveness of the training changes it implemented and whether further adjustments were necessary. We recommended the Navy validate the underlying assumptions and standards it uses to calculate workforce requirements and, as necessary, based on this assessment, reevaluate its cruiser and destroyer workload requirements. We also recommended the Navy develop additional metrics to measure the effectiveness of its training. The Navy concurred with our recommendations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 07, 2011
Accession Number
ADA545388

Entities

People

  • Cynthia Grant
  • James Krustapentus
  • Joanne Landesman
  • Mary J. Lacasse
  • Michael Ferren
  • Nicole Harms
  • Sharon L. Pickup

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Computer-Aided Instruction
  • Congress
  • Education
  • Electronic Mail
  • Governments
  • House Of Representatives
  • Materials
  • National Governments
  • Naval Operations
  • Naval Vessels (Combatant)
  • Navy
  • Ships
  • Standards
  • Training
  • United States
  • United States Government
  • Websites

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Maritime and Naval Warfare Studies
  • STEM Education