17 juin 2022 | International, Aérospatial
The Akeron line is intended to help militaries respond to the wide range of threats they can face on a battlefield.
9 juillet 2022 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
If enacted, the increase would be nearly twice as much as France had previously committed to boosting its year-over-year budget in the last two years.
21 mai 2020 | International, Naval
By: Bryan Clark and Timothy A. Walton The U.S. Navy's award this month of the contract for its new class of frigates starts the very necessary process of rebalancing the U.S. surface fleet, but the competition also highlighted the U.S. shipbuilding-industrial base's increasing fragility. If they lost, two of the four shipyards bidding on the frigate were at risk of either going out of business or joining the underemployed ranks of U.S. commercial shipbuilders. Due to specialization, only one or two yards construct each class of Navy combat ship with workforces, equipment, and infrastructure that would be expensive and difficult to adapt. A decision on any single ship class, as with the frigate, can shut down a shipyard and send its workers to the unemployment line. Specialization is also a problem when orders increase. The Navy's two submarine shipyards, General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News division, shrank the time needed to build subs by 20 percent during the past decade while increasing production to two per year. The rising sophistication of Virginia-class submarines has now reversed this trend, however, and submarine builders' challenges are only increasing. They recently started a new contract to build up to 10 of the larger Block V Virginia submarines and are in negotiation with the Navy on a block-buy contract for the first two Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. Supplier challenges abound U.S. shipbuilders may be fragile, but their suppliers are on life support. After decades of being whipsawed by changes to shipbuilding plans and budget uncertainty, a shrinking number of suppliers are able and willing to stay in business. The Navy's recent initiatives to improve supplier production capacity and resilience don't go far enough to address its rising dependence on sole-source suppliers, which now provide more than 75 percent of submarine parts. For example, when problems with Columbia missile tubes led the Navy to seek new suppliers, it replaced the existing, sole source — BWXT — with another — General Dynamics — that will assemble tubes at the same facilities that are constructing parts for the Virginia and Columbia submarines. Last year, the Trump administration used the Defense Production Act to establish new suppliers for military missile fuel. The Navy should build on this effort to identify sole-source items for which an additional supplier is appropriate. In selecting additional suppliers, the Navy should prioritize attributes other than cost. Sole-source items by definition are important enough to justify seeking out or creating a single supplier rather than adapting the ship's design to use an existing item. Therefore, the Navy should emphasize the provider's track record in conducting similar or other challenging engineering; its ability to adjust to what will likely be variable demand and changing specifications; and the likelihood of quality production that avoids rework. Planning for resiliency The Department of Defense could help address the shipbuilding-industrial base's fragility with its current study of the number and mix of ships needed in the future fleet. Although the primary goal of this analysis should be determining the most effective fleet possible within likely budget constraints, it must also ensure the industrial base can build and sustain the future Navy. Industrial base considerations are not new to Navy force structure planning. During the last decade, the Navy or Congress added amphibious ships, submarines, destroyers and auxiliary vessels to maintain hot production lines or keep a shipyard afloat until the next order. Each of the Navy's new combatant ships are expected to cost more than $1 billion to build, constraining the Navy's ability to spread ship construction to other qualified shipyards to fill production gaps or extend classes to keep a shipyard in operation. The Navy could better support shipbuilders by rebalancing its fleet architecture to increase the number of smaller vessels such as corvettes or tank landing ships, and reduce the number of larger destroyers and amphibious warships. Smaller, less-expensive ships could be built in larger numbers per year, providing more flexibility in shipbuilding plans to stabilize the workload for shipbuilders and providing more scalability to align shipbuilding expenditures with changing budgets. Smaller ships could also be built at a wider range of shipyards, including those that only build commercial vessels and noncombatant government ships like Coast Guard cutters and oceanographic research vessels. These “dual-use” shipbuilders suffer today from a lack of coordination between commercial and government shipbuilding, which creates a feast-or-famine cycle of orders. The Navy and nation depend on a healthy shipbuilding-industrial base. To foster the industrial base in the face of natural and man-made challenges, the Navy should change its fleet design and shipbuilding plans, while investing to establish and qualify new suppliers. Without deliberate action, the U.S. shipbuilding industry will become increasingly fragile, limiting the Navy's ability to build the ships it needs and respond when today's competitions turn to conflict. Bryan Clark is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, where Timothy A. Walton is a fellow. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/05/20/shipbuilding-suppliers-need-more-than-market-forces-to-stay-afloat/
7 mai 2019 | International, Naval
By Matt Morrison, NAVSUP Public Affairs NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (NNS) -- Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) showcases innovative technology and processes at this year's Sea Air Space Exposition, May 6-8, in National Harbor, Maryland. Featured in booth 1201 this year is the latest information on NAVSUP's reform initiative. NAVSUP's reform program is advancing with a series of initiatives to build on the efforts started in 2018. These initiatives are designed to enable audit and inventory accountability, aggressively accelerate contracting speed, deliver on our end-to-end supply chain integrator role, organize internally to deliver on fleet needs, enable the deck plate, and get more from the supply base. These efforts will improve warfighter readiness and lethality, and enable NAVSUP to improve business processes and better align with its customers in delivering supplies, services, and quality-of-life support to the Navy and Joint warfighters around the world. NAVSUP is the single point of accountability for the integrated Navy supply chain with full audit compliance. NAVSUP is also demonstrating the latest in autonomous mobile robot (AMR) technology at the expo. AMR is an emerging technology that provides a powerful toolset to collect, monitor and react to important information regarding asset location. The AMR uses onboard radio frequency identification (RFID) readers to gather data from passive RFID tags placed on material in our warehouses. This provides the ability to constantly collect inventory data and immediately react to discrepancies. This solution does not require an expensive fixed infrastructure to deploy and will enable NAVSUP to perform wall-to-wall inventories on a regular basis and exceed inventory validity goals. Representatives from the NAVSUP Office of Small Business Programs will be in the booth sharing information on NAVSUP initiatives to offer procurement opportunities to small business. The office of small business is committed to maximizing procurement opportunities for all small business concerns and minority-serving educational institutions. This effort is in support of the Secretary of the Navy's goal to identify and develop small businesses that can support the NAVSUP mission and the Navy/Marine Corps force for tomorrow. NAVSUP's procurement includes weapon systems spares and repair parts, Navy medical supplies and services, and commercial supplies and services that support the fleet. Sea-Air-Space is the largest maritime exposition in the United States and is an extension of the Navy League's mission of maritime policy education and sea service support. The expo features the most current information and technology relevant to maritime policy. Headquartered in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and employing a diverse, worldwide workforce of more than 22,500 military and civilian personnel, NAVSUP's mission is to provide supplies, services, and quality-of-life support to the Navy and joint warfighter. Learn more at www.navsup.navy.mil, www.facebook.com/navsup and http://twitter.com/navsupsyscom. Get more information about the Navy from US Navy facebook or twitter. For more news from Naval Supply Systems Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/navsup/. https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=109498