US Navy’s Supply Chain Chief Wants to Transform Dollars into Readiness

The U.S. Navy is trying to improve its readiness while reining in the rising costs of maintenance and modernization. While these goals can seem at odds, the service’s first stab at this effort allowed it to boost its fighter jet mission-capable rates from below 50 percent to 80 percent in 2019. The Navy said it revamped processes rather than throwing money at the problem. The program marked the first implementation of the Performance to Plan (P2P) and Naval Sustainment System (NSS) initiatives, which apply best practices from commercial industry, create clear communication and responsibility between supported and supporting commands, and use data analytics to highlight problem areas and identify solutions....More

VCNO: Enthusiasm Over Navy’s Performance-to-Plan Readiness Effort is Spreading

[Adm. Bill] Lescher described the P2P piece as finding the root cause of current performance and a “relentless hunt for leverage,” or the levers that would make the biggest difference in achieving better performance. NSS is a follow-on effort that brings in experts from industry or elsewhere to use their own best practices and lessons learned to help the Navy address those specific issues identified in P2P...More

Wittman: Navy Needs Money in its Budget for Modernization, But Not From Cutting Cruisers

James Geurts, who served as the Navy’s acquisition chief from 2017 until January and is currently performing the duties of undersecretary of the Navy, said at the same conference that the Navy acquisition community had been able to achieve significant savings without sacrificing quality just by being more efficient in contracting: over the last two years, he said, the Navy put 20 percent more money on contract with 20 to 25 percent fewer contract actions. He also pointed to the Super Hornet readiness effort – to bring the F/A-18E-F Super Hornet fleet from a mission capable rate of about 55 percent up to 80 percent through business process changes, rather than just throwing more money at the problem – as an example of how the Navy was approaching efficiencies...More

CBO: Navy Still Needs Bigger Workforce To Dig Out of Submarine Maintenance Backlog

To address the issue with maintenance planning, NAVSEA is evaluating how it could use its Perform to Plan (P2P) initiative – which utilizes data to determine the best approaches to planning availabilities – for submarine and aircraft carrier maintenance...More