EB News April-May 2013 - Electric Boat Corporation

LENNON DESCRIBES THE WAYFORWARD FOR OHIO REPLACEMENTEDITOR’S NOTE: IN THE FOLLOWING Q&A, ENGINEERING AND DESIGN PROGRAM VICEPRESIDENT WILL LENNON DISCUSSES THE STATUS OF THE OHIO REPLACEMENT PROGRAM ATELECTRIC BOAT AS WELL AS THE WORK TO BE ACCOMPLISHED OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS.Would you describe the currentstatus of the Ohio ReplacementProgram, particularly as it applies toElectric Boat?Ohio Replacement is one of the nation’stop-priority programs because of itsnuclear-deterrence mission.Today, we have about 1,700 people,from almost all areas of the business,working on Ohio Replacement designbuild-sustainteams. These employeesrepresent all of the engineering anddesign disciplines, the operations organizationsat Quonset Point and Groton aswell as test, planning and materials. OhioReplacement accounts for about 35 percentof the engineering-design workloadtoday and will grow to about 50 percentover the next couple of years when we’llhave more than 2,400 people working onthe program.Over the next couple of years, we’llincrease the amount of constructioninvolvement as we prototype and qualifythe missile-tube erection sequence. Wealso need to validate the new IPDE toolthat we’re putting in place. Constructionbegins in October 2020, at the start of FiscalYear 2021.What’s going to happen over thenext 12 months?It’s going to be a very busy time. Traditionally,the submarine design-build processcomprises 11 different phases. In thedesign process itself there are three majorphases to focus on: establishing the technicalrequirements; completing the ship’sarrangement – the 3D product model; anddesign disclosure. The design disclosureis what historically would be considered adrawing, but on Ohio Replacement we’removing away from that.When you work on the design you wantto minimize the overlap between thosethree phases, because the more they overlapthe more chance you have for reworkas requirements change, which mayresult in iterating arrangements or designdisclosures.This year we’re really concentratingon the technical requirements – the shipspecifications, as well as establishing theship length, the baseline ship arrangementand its major features. Then you start toget down into a little more detail – systemdescriptions, system diagrams andcomponent specifications. This upfronttechnical work will be the big focus of thenext year.For the Ohio Replacement Program,this is the transition year. We’re transitioningout of concept studies and variationsof what this ship might be to doingthe hard technical work of defining whatthis ship will be. From there we can go offand develop the 3D product model and thedesign disclosures.There are other things going on in additionto that technical work. We’re going tocontinue with the development and prototypingof our new design tool. There’s alot of effort going on with the IT Departmentworking with CSC and Siemensto put in place our new CAD and designmanagement system for use in this design.As that comes into production, we’ll haveto train our people. That’ll be a big effort.And then we want to prototype it, to validatethat it works. We’ll be working ona non-shipboard prototype, which worksthe bugs out of the system, and then we’llmove on to some tactical, shipboard prototypesin the not-too-distant future.This effort will validate the way weplan to do business – from the designdisclosure controlled under the technicalauthority of the design yard to thework instructions given to the mechanicunder the build authority. Our vision isto reduce paper deliverables and insteadfeed electronic information directly to themechanics and equipment in the shipyardto provide them what they need to do thetask at hand.The last thing we’ll focus on near termwill be the qualification of our missiletubeand missile-compartment manufacturingassembly plan. We’re developing aCommon Missile Compartment to supportboth the U.S. and the UK and we’re developinga design that maximizes the use ofour modular construction techniques. Sowe need to get the design disclosures done4 | ELECTRIC BOAT NEWS | APRIL/MAY 2013