Can America’s Shipbuilders meet the U.S. Navy’s Long-Range Vessel Construction Plan?

Abstract

This thesis examined the current capacity of the defense shipbuilding industry in the United States, and the need to expand the nation’s shipbuilding capabilities to fulfill the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan. The authors explored a learning curve model along with a queuing theory capacity model to determine and compare the utilization rate of two industrial-base shipbuilders, Bath Ironworks and Ingalls Shipbuilding. Due to rarely achieved learning curve efficiencies and complex manufacturing processes, the shipbuilding industry is at full effective capacity. Recommendations are to adopt one or more of the logistics principles introduced including adding redundancy, implementing a more distributed supply chain, introducing “low-road” or shorter service-life vessels, and reducing the three dimensions of ship variety, ship complexity, and the Navy’s demand variability