Improving Overhaul Planning Through Risk Assessment and Risk Management
The execution of the overhaul of U.S. naval vessels at a public shipyard is fraught with risk. Far too often the work authorization process is constrained by a limited budget. This situation can result in two common outcomes:The shipyard delivers a ship to the customer that has significant repair work either deferred or incomplete.The deferred or incomplete work is screened back to the shipyard late in the overhaul, forcing an upheaval in the logical planning and execution of the availability. Risk affects both the shipyard and ship's force because the completion of the overhaul could be affected by late authorized work resulting in the ship not being able to meet her commitments. As Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (PNSV) is an industry leader in Zone or Group Technology execution methods, it is particularly disruptive to work flow to return to geographic areas and perform work in an area out of phase—or even worse—in an area where similar work is already complete. With the innovation of Zone Technology, it was clear that a consistent and effective risk assessment method must be developed to determine the probability of equipment failure during the testing phase of the overhaul and the impact on cost and schedule to the overhaul. The USS Kidd (DD-963) scheduled availability in 1989 proved to be the ideal opportunity to develop and execute a formal risk assessment and management program. The USS Constellation (CV-64) SLEP availability in 1990 afforded the opportunity to refine and expand the risk assessment methodology.