Qualifications
DDG Class PMS Validation
To help reduce process inefficiencies, improve process quality and mitigate related risks, Asystek worked with the Naval Surface Warfare Center – Philadelphia Detachment (NSWCPD) to develop and implement new approaches, tools and techniques for the validation and verification of mission critical Planned Maintenance System artifacts (PMS) for the US Navy’s new guided missile Destroyer, DDG1000 (Admiral Zumwalt). The objective of the DDG1000 PMS validation effort was to validate that PMS documentation (i.e. maintenance procedures) was consistent with the installation and configuration of DDG1000 Shipboard systems and equipment, prior to sail away.
To support DDG PMS validations, automated decision support and prioritization tools and techniques were developed to identify and triage the scope and subsequent validation of PMS on more critical systems and components, resulting in a reduction of related Technical Feedbacks and associated costs. Integral to the success of this effort was the development and adoption of a data-driven approach, powered by Asystek’s data4impakt™ method, that prioritizes and sequences scope and activities based on value, criticality and likelihood of failure. This technique allows NSWCPD program management to anticipate and focus resources on the proper subset of systems and components, thereby optimizing the use of finite resources. By deploying the PMS Validation support services on the DDG1000 (Admiral Zumwalt), it is conservatively estimated that nearly $2M in Technical Feedback Report Request resolution costs will be avoided, resulting in an ROI of nearly 245%. In addition to this dramatic cost avoidance value proposition, proactively validating the integrity of PMS documentation prior to ship sail away enables the ship and its sailors to better meet mission requirements, improves equipment operational availability, reduces systems and equipment TCO, improves the ship board personnel safety environment and supports the US Navy’s strategic move to configuration based maintenance.
CVN ILS Alterations Support
The CVN ILS Alterations Support Program is highly integral to the operational readiness of the Carrier Fleet and the mission of the Warfighter, and ensuring that the necessary Aircraft Carrier modernization availability alterations and their appropriate planning and scoping artifacts (Impact Summaries, Certifications, Product Tasks and Caveats) are completed and delivered in a timely manner. Depending on the scope of a particular availability, the variety of systems, equipment and components can be quite diverse, the quantity of artifacts that have to be developed prepared and delivered as well as the amount of products that need to be developed and provisioned can be very large, and the number of organizations and resources that have to be marshaled is extensive. The above is further compounded by the fact that at any given time, an average of 8 to 10 Carrier availabilities need to be coordinated and managed concurrently. All of the above considerations contribute to a very complex program and the need for an advanced tool to ensure the proper assignment, execution, management, tracking and timely completion of all related tasking is of paramount importance. Recognizing this need, Asystek Solutions Group developed a highly automated tracking and scorecard mechanism that provides a robust set of features to aid the CVN ILS Alterations Support Program in its day-to-day data collection, tracking and status reporting efforts and to provide near real time updates to ongoing progress so that roadblocks (e.g. resource contention issues) can be anticipated and solved prior to becoming an issue. The adoption of the new process and toolset has driven rigor into the program and has resulted in a resource efficiency gain of nearly 20%. As a result, the CVN ILS Alterations Support Program plans to continue to expand the functions of the newly developed toolset and is considering plans to extend its use across the Surface and Sub-surface Fleet.
CVN Supply Support Planning
Supportability of Shipboard systems and equipment is essential to ensuring the fulfillment of the ship’s obligations and missions. In the event of a failure, repair parts must be available to service the equipment and return it to a full operational status. Given resource constraints, the US Navy does not have the resources to stock every repair part associated with all Shipboard systems, nor does the ship have the “real estate” to warehouse every required repair part.
Teaming with NSWCPD, Asystek Solutions Group developed a Risk Cube gauge to ensure that the right parts are available at the right time to repair the right equipment. This Risk Cube scores the equipment base on several criticality parameters such as: safety, application, failure rate, system criticality, and cost. The Risk Cube analysis then triages and prioritizes the equipment based on impact and then enlists the support of subject matter experts and engineers so that a “deep dive” sparing analysis can be performed to determine if the system or equipment is a candidate for a “Deep Dive” sparing analysis. This “deep dive” applies targeted analytics based on maintenance philosophies and business rules to arrive at the correct sparing postures to provide the ship with the proper supportability solutions. As a result, an efficient and effective sparing solution is deployed to stage optimal levels of Shipboard and shore-based initial and life cycle repair parts, reducing mean time to repair (MTTR), logistics down time (LDT) and US Navy cost while increasing mean time between failure (MTBF) and ship operational availability.