Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday called on industry to adjust to new technology faster to counter China during remarks Monday at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space conference.
"One of the things where industry can really help us is to be a bit more agile," especially when it comes to new technologies, Gilday said. "It's not the 90s anymore."
Gilday also criticized industry for maintenance delays in private shipyards and for lobbying Congress to buy more aircraft than the service needs.
"Building the ships you want to build, lagging on repairs to ships, lobbying Congress to buy aircraft we don't need, that are excess to need, is not helpful," Gilday said. "It really isn't in a budget-constrained environment."
Gilday said recently released second-quarter earnings results reflect the defense companies are satisfied with the status quo. But with a growing threat from China, Gilday said industry needs to be willing to pivot and work with the Navy to develop and build new technologies.
"If you go to the tri-service strategy, we really try to punctuate the sense of urgency that we feel every day against China to move the needle, in a bureaucracy that is really not designed to move very fast," he said.
The country needs a new approach in terms of what platforms it builds and how it builds them, Gilday said.
"We have to get beyond the blame and look forward, in terms of, how are we going to do this*" he said.
Gilday also highlighted the Navy's work to cut days of maintenance delays, a long-standing issue for the service.
He said the Navy is leveraging data and analytics to cut the days of maintenance delay and determined 30% of delay days are attributable to poor Navy up-front planning.
The public shipyards met the Navy's goal to drive down delay days by 80% in 2020, he said, while public shipyards reduced days of maintenance delay by around 60%.
"We have a ways to go; COVID had an effect on that," Gilday said.