John F. Shipway will focus on safety and employee suggestions.
BATH (AP) – The retired Navy rear admiral who now heads Bath Iron Works says one of his goals is to make the shipyard more efficient.
John F. “Dugan” Shipway said it takes BIW 8 to 10 percent longer than its archrival, Northrop Grumman Ingalls in Mississippi, to build an Aegis destroyer. He said decreasing the number of labor hours needed would help protect long-term job security at Bath.
“It is a fact that our man-hours are greater than Ingalls’ today. It’s within our control to narrow that gap, close it and maybe put them on the other side,” Shipway told the Portland Press Herald.
Shipway said speeding up production becomes more important as the Navy orders fewer ships per year. The Navy has ordered three destroyers a year for the past decade, but orders are slated to go down for the next destroyer model, the DDX.
If the Navy’s ordering fewer boats, said Shipway, BIW needs to be as competitive as possible in terms of how long it takes to produce the destroyers.
“I did acquisition in the Navy for 13 years, and I lived through the cancellation of the Seawolf (submarine) program when we were going to have 30 in the decade of the ’90s, and it went to one,” Shipway said.
“I don’t want us to lose out because we haven’t clearly addressed that moving forward. I want to increase the probability that the Navy still sees value (in BIW).”
Shipway said he is focusing on two main ways to increase efficiency – improving on-the-job safety and listening to suggestions from workers.
He ruled out any attempt by the yard to diversify into commercial contracts and said BIW would stick with the U.S. Navy as its sole customer.
“We have a honed, refined skill base that builds the most capable surface warships in the world today,” said Shipway. “By building commercial ships we will dilute that focus.”
Shipway joined BIW’s parent company, General Dynamics, in 2000 after a 35-year Navy career.
He was named president of BIW following Allan Cameron’s surprise retirement in late April.
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