Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center had a Department of Defense designated repair facility with electronics, high pressure air, and electro-mechanical capabilities. Most of the facility's business was replenishing the Naval Inventory system which supplied parts and modules to the Navy for ships and submarines.
Submarines have an item called a depth gage to determine how deep they are under water. If the sub goes too deep then the sub could run aground or, at extreme depths, the outside pressure can crush the hull. These gages are critical and make the difference between life and death for those aboard a sub. They must meet stringent performance requirements and be certified to do so.
These were older gages and the Navy was having difficulty keeping them in stock. If the gages were not repairable or parts were unavailable, then the stock could not be replenished. All subs had to have certified gages each time they went out to sea. If they did not have any available, then they had to stay in port until they could get them.
Subs operate on strict schedules. They have to keep to those schedules as a crucial matter of national security. As more gages failed and the repairs were delayed, the gage situation became critical. Subs had to hold up patrols and wait for another sub to come to port so that the gages on that one could be overhauled and certified for use on the waiting sub.
The Item Manager for the gages at the inventory point was being pressured by the submarine Captains for the lack of certified gages. As the situation had become critical he called on me to consult with him about the gages, their repair processes, and to develop a plan and a team to resolve the problem. We put a team together and brainstormed about solutions to the problem.
A constraint analysis revealed that the bellows assembly was the primary bottleneck. We determined that we could repair many of the bellows assemblies instead of waiting for the manufacturer to build new ones. The new ones were very expensive and took many months to complete. The team came up with a good work process to repair the items and a new, more efficient, method to certify the gages.
The next big challenge was to get Navy certification for the facility to do the work. We spent several months to establish the necessary funding sources, staffing the certification team and proving the new certification process. Part of this process was to get the sub Captains to join the effort and to send critical naval messages to expedite the plan and the qualification of the facility and processes. Once the team qualified the facility and the new certification method, it was up and running within a short time and had the gage shortage relieved and an inventory of spare gages in stock.
The benefits of this work were multiple, and included:
Faster Casualty Reporting (CASREP) response,
Reduced repair turnaround time (RTAT) by 75%,
Large cost savings by repairing the bellows assemblies,
Reduced costs on purchase of new depth gages by 50%.
The bare cost savings of down-time on idle subs and the new certification method were very large, but the criticality to national security of patrols going out on time and the safety of those aboard were beyond measure.