Navy Missile Maintenance Can Be Done Cheaper by Improving Productivity

The Navy has not tailored its intermediate missile maintenance resources to effectively meet its needs. To achieve an effective and economic match of maintenance resources with its needs, the Navy must be able to compare the facilities' capacity with projected requirements. However, the Navy has neither determined its facilities' capacity nor the private sector's capacity to meet its missile maintenance requirements.

Navy officials recognize that its missile maintenance resources are greater than needed, but they do not know to what extent. An analysis indicated that the Navy's missile maintenance capacity should be reduced. Weapons stations are not using their work force efficiently because of fluctuating or insufficient workloads. As a result, there is excessive idle time and skilled workers are assigned to nonskilled jobs. The underused missile maintenance capacity is costing millions of dollars annually, but this information has not been provided to the Secretary of Defense. Furthermore, the customers of the maintenance facilities are paying for the unused capacity. The Navy lacks assurance that missile maintenance production is accomplished efficiently because the maintenance facilities are without effective work measurement systems. Consequently, actual performance standards cannot be evaluated or compared to performance standards or to other work at similar facilities.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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