Navy takes lessons from cruise lines, Coast Guard and more to reduce maintenance delays

By Abby Shepherd / January 16, 2025 at 4:07 PM

The Navy has employed a new planning strategy to reduce time spent on ship maintenance availabilities across the fleet, a service official said Thursday.

This “world-class planning sprint” includes partnering with cruise lines, airlines, the Coast Guard and other organizations to learn from their best planning practices, and in turn relate them to the Navy to reduce delays throughout the surface fleet, Navy Regional Maintenance Center Commander Rear Adm. Bill Green said at the Surface Navy Association’s conference.

After learning from these organizations, Green said the Navy plans to roll out some pilot elements of a program focused on tackling these delays. Green added it has been about 10 years since the Navy’s contracting strategy for ship maintenance was overhauled, and there are existing proposals to alter aspects of the system.

Discussion of the planning sprint follows the release of “Competitive Edge 2.0” earlier this week by Naval Surface Warfare Commander Vice Adm. Brendan McClane -- a roadmap to get 80% of surface warships combat surge ready by 2027.

McClane aims to have at least 71% of all CNO availabilities on time by September 2025, as well as a reduction in days of maintenance delays to less than 1,714 by that same month.

Earlier this week, McClane said there has been progress in improving readiness, as the service has reduced days of maintenance delay by 62% since 2019, to 2,633 days.

“That’s significant and impressive, but we still have lots of work to do to drive it down to zero by 2027, especially with amphibious warship maintenance availabilities,” McClane said. “Since 2018, of the 25 amphibious ready groups and Marine Expeditionary Units deployed, 38% were delayed due to amphib maintenance availabilities not finishing on time. Those availability delays resulted in the loss of 400 operational days at sea.”

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