Naval Enterprise Engineering: Design, Innovate and Train (NEEDIT)
Abstract
Every generation of government Naval Engineers has a responsibility to see that the lessons learned and body of knowledge associated with fielded Naval equipment, systems and processes makes it to the next generation. Part of this knowledge includes the design methods and production techniques associated with producing the equipment. The transfer of design knowledge traditionally occurs over a long period of time through a design engineering internship. However, in recent years, acquisition reform philosophies involving a shift in design and production work to private industry have reduced the ability of this transfer to occur. The focus of the current naval engineering workforce is acquisition support rather than design of naval systems and equipment. This focus limits the ability of government engineers to develop the level of design expertise necessary for design innovation to occur as rapidly or as widely as in past generations. Leadership places a high priority on an innovative workforce, but an innovative workforce can only exist when the working environment provides workers with the opportunity to develop the appropriate expertise. Given the current focus on acquisition, the workforce of the future will most likely consist of innovative acquisition experts who lack the expertise to be innovative designers. This paper examines current naval engineering workforce development and in particular the changes brought about by acquisition reform to the area of design engineering. It includes a discussion of recent publications addressing building a design engineering workforce. The discussion reveals a possible pathway for creating more innovative design engineers in the future and builds a case for providing structured design engineer training. The paper also includes a description of a tool for providing an e-learning simulation based training program to help Naval engineers develop the necessary expertise in design engineering.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 04, 2015
- Accession Number
- ADA620198
Entities
People
- Robert Galway
Organizations
- Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division