WASHINGTON, April 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. secretary of the Navy vowed Tuesday to streamline USN shipbuilding and procurement.
Navy Secretary Donald Winter told the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space symposium he wanted to give the Navy far more power against defense contractors in the procurement process, the Navy Times reported Wednesday.
The U.S. Navy was going to "reassert its control over the entire shipbuilding acquisition process," the newspaper quoted him as saying.
"The Navy owns the fleet, and the Navy is the customer," Winter said according to the report. "Sometimes, one has the impression that this tiny distinction has been forgotten."
Winter also expressed exasperation about the high cost of ships in comments to the press after his formal presentation. His comments, he said, were "a mark of frustration that we're not getting as much as we can out of the industry."
In recent weeks, congressmen at congressional hearings have expressed their own frustrations about soaring costs and lengthening delays in the USN receiving urgently needed ships.
"The Navy must make the selections of key trade-offs (in) performance, crew size, logistics support, cost and schedule," Winter said in his speech.
"The lead systems integrator should be the Navy, not the contractor," he said. "Only the Navy is in a position to assess a program's impact on overall fleet optimization." He called on U.S. industry to "rethink its production processes when new platforms are being brought online."
Congressmen have compared U.S. naval shipbuilding practices unfavorably with those in commercial European and East Asian shipyards.
