CBO: Better Planning Could Cut Down U.S. Navy's Drydock Delays

The U.S. Navy surface fleet's maintenance-delay woes continue to worsen, according to a new review by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Challenges during yard periods have been building for years, and are a key impediment to generating readiness and deterrence. Known difficulties in planning and parts procurement are exacerbated by an aging fleet, CBO found in a review of maintenance data for destroyers and amphibs - and some vessels have experienced man-hour labor overruns in the range of 40 percent, raising cost and consuming scarce workforce resources.

For its analysis, CBO looked at 14 years of U.S. Navy schedule data for destroyers and amphibs across the fleet. It compared the initial estimate of days in shipyard with the actual outcome, and the same for labor hours. On average, the Navy's yard-period estimates were longer in duration than what NAVSEA engineers had predicted for downtime when planning and building each ship class, indicating that real-world maintenance plans were more intensive than the designers' expectations. On top of that, actual shipyard periods were longer than estimates, by up to another 60 percent.

On average, destroyer overhauls took 26 percent longer than estimated and used eight percent more labor hours, driving up cost, CBO found. Annual maintenance funding per destroyer has risen from about $7 million per year to more than $25 million per year since 2009.

A big part of the reason is simply an aging combatant fleet, requiring deeper maintenance and more modernization in each yard period. Arleigh Burkes now average about 20 years of age, and many of the hulls are going through the scheduled time period for midlife refits. Deferred maintenance - due to extended deployments or other reasons - also adds to scope and cost growth.

Other problems are essentially administrative and could be resolved with planning and supply chain improvements. Delays in pre-contract inspections lead to delays in finalizing scope of work and signing yard contracts; delayed yard contracts lead to delayed parts orders; delayed parts orders lead to slowdowns while waiting for deliveries. Skipped or poorly-done inspections lead to surprises mid-project, requiring more price negotiations and more delays for parts orders.

In parallel with the repair work, modernization contractors for ship system upgrades were historically allowed to operate without full schedule coordination with the shipyard, leading to conflicts and delays. Repair yards and modernization contractors work on the same ship at the same time, but are hired and supervised by two different groups of Navy officials: Modernization contractors are overseen by Naval Sea Systems Command, while repair yards are overseen by regional maintenance centers (RMACs), leading to a bifurcated chain of command and difficulties in coordination. The Navy is attempting to smooth this out by requiring more advance planning for modernization contracts.

Over time, the Navy has been increasing its estimates for yard period times, reflecting the realities in drydock, CBO found. But the delays in drydock have been increasing too, so the gap between estimate and actual duration has persisted. In the amphib fleet, some egregious examples have been delayed for several years - even longer for USS Tortuga, which spent more than six years in one yard period.