‘The Names Have Changed, But The Song Remains The Same’: Rob Wittman Laments Shipbuilding Issues

12 hours ago

During a House Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA) discussed lasting issues in the U.S. shipbuilding industry.

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Transcript

00:00Recognize Mr. Whitman. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank our witnesses.

00:03Ms. Oakley, you brought it out, I think, very succinctly and clearly. The names have changed,

00:09but the song remains the same. It has been the same for the last two decades. We know what we

00:14need to do. We just can't seem to find a way to get it done. We see issues with workforce. That's

00:20a continuing theme. We see an issue with design maturity, design completeness. We see an issue

00:26with maintaining the ships that we allegedly are supposed to be building. And we look at A sub O,

00:31operational availability to go down. I mean, all these things are mind-bogglingly simple,

00:37yet we can't seem to get to a place to address them. And Dr. Seidel and Mr. O'Rourke and Ms.

00:43Oakley, I want to begin with you. Give me your perspective. You spoke a little bit about this.

00:48You know, we talk about workforce, yet we have a maintenance industry that has

00:53rollercoaster rides where lots of ships in the yard and then the ships disappear. We lay people

00:57off with the same skills that we need in the build yards, and yet we don't seem to want to integrate

01:02those two enterprises, which use the same skill sets. We also, too, look at how do we make sure

01:08that we are getting designs complete. We know when we go to the yard, like constellation class,

01:13it's going to be 85 percent complete. Certain uncertainty goes out the door, and yet we change

01:18that, and now it's only 15 percent complete in design. I mean, we know what it takes to

01:23successfully entertain and execute these enterprises, yet we keep going back to the

01:28same place. Tell me, tell me, how do we make meaningful changes that will last and that will be

01:35transformational to what needs to happen both in the ship building and ship maintenance industry?

01:41Because you can't separate the two. They both have to happen the same way. Dr. Seidel, I'll

01:45begin with you, then go to Ms. Oakley, and then Mr. O'Rourke. Thank you for that question, sir,

01:54and appreciate being here today to talk about this. Listen, I think, first and importantly,

02:02the work that this committee has done supporting us with the maritime industrial base funds,

02:07previously the submarine industrial base funds, is a big part of what we're doing. We stood up

02:11the direct reporting program manager office for the maritime industrial base, the DERPA-MIB,

02:17last September. This body has given us over four billion dollars just in the last two years that

02:23gets at these issues. We are putting that money on the workforce hiring and retention issues.

02:30We're putting it on supply chain network issues. We're driving modernization and advanced

02:35manufacturing into the yards. You know, I will say this workforce piece, this atrophy of that

02:43sector, in my opinion, is fundamental to everything that we're talking about. We really have to find a

02:49way. I often say, back when I worked in the private sector, we were paying $3.35 minimum wage,

02:57and we were paying $13 an hour for manufacturing labor, 3 or 4x. Today, it's 1.2, 1.3x.

03:05We're trying to get after that, and I think, you know, I'll be quick here because I know we want

03:10other folks to be able to talk, but just in the workforce piece, we stood up buildsubmarines.com.

03:16We've had over 3 million hits on that since its inception, led to 2.5 million applications,

03:219,700 employees hired for the submarine industrial base in 23, a 40% improvement, another 10k in 24.

03:30Real metrics, real progress. We're going to see that play out on the back end of this to drive

03:35production, but there's good in this happening. I want to make sure I get to Ms. Oakley,

03:38Mr. O'Rourke. Ms. Oakley? I'll be real quick. You hit the nail on the head with regard to the

03:42overlap between the repair and shipbuilding workforces and the industrial base, and that's

03:47why our recent report on the shipbuilding and ship repair industrial base recommended that the Navy

03:51put forth a strategy for how they're going to invest in both of these industrial bases to ensure

03:57that they're both going to be positioned to not only deliver the ships that we need, but also

04:01maintain and sustain those ships for our fleet. And then secondly, I think one important thing

04:06to note about design is that the Navy's own design workforce in-house has significantly atrophied as

04:13well, and I think that that's part of the problem that you're seeing with regard to reviewing the

04:18design progress and really understanding how mature these designs are before we're making

04:25these critical decisions. And I know they're focused on improving that as well, and I think

04:29that's a good approach. Thank you. Mr. O'Rourke? I'll make four quick points. First, of the various

04:35options in my testimony, the one that has the most promise for achieving results the soonest is the

04:42one that Dr. Labs is focused on, which is increasing wages. Second, the design issue on the

04:51frigate program is another workforce issue because once you abandoned the parent design strategy,

04:59you threw that into the hands of the ship design community to redesign the ship. Well, we have a

05:04shortage of ship designers in this country, naval architects and marine engineers, so that's another

05:09workforce issue. And again, that's a wages issue because these are engineers that could

05:14take engineering jobs in other parts of the economy. Mr. O'Rourke, in deference to the

05:20chairman, I want to take your additional two suggestions for the record, Mr. Chairman.

‘The Names Have Changed, But The Song Remains The Same’: Rob Wittman Laments Shipbuilding Issues

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