Changing Course to a 21st Century Acquisition Strategy: Navy-Industry Collaborative Design

Abstract

The U.S. Navy (USN) and U.S. naval shipbuilding industry are facing an historic inflection point to realize the growth in the number of warships in the fleet over the next 2 to 3 decades. And a demanding shipbuilding program demands a new 21st-Century Acquisition Strategy: Navy–Industry Collaborative Design. This new strategy will enable and promote open, substantive collaboration between the U.S. Navy and naval shipbuilding Industry and will ensure the design, construction, and sustainment of a more affordable, adaptable, and durable fleet. The team of four authors of this paper with collectively more than 200 total years in naval ship acquisition, design, and construction management believes strongly the time is long overdue for such a bold strategy. No longer will the recent failed acquisition approaches enable the USN and U.S. shipbuilding industry meet and/or surpass the existential and growing challenges of its naval adversaries. Based on the team’s significant experience and insight into naval ship design and shipbuilding as well as a decade of American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE) Global Shipbuilding Executives Summits (GSES), the authors have compiled in this paper a set of recommendations for a bold new acquisition strategy for the USN.