Freedom-class littoral combat ships, such as the Sioux City (LCS-11), were called out by a Government Accountability Office report as having particularly high cannibalization rates over the past decade. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Nicholas A. Russell)
WASHINGTON — The Navy’s surface fleet leadership is holding regular “sustainment summits” in part to address ongoing issues with how often the Navy is forced to cannibalize its own ships for parts, according to a senior officer overseeing the issue.
“Are we where we need to be? Absolutely not,” Rear Adm. Fred Pyle said in response to questions about a recent Government Accountability Office report highlighting an uptick in Navy ship maintenance problems. “That’s why I’m addressing it here, why we’re shining a bright light on [it] and why we want to move the needle on what’s better.”
Ship cannibalization, according to a new GAO report, has been happening more frequently across the service’s surface fleet for the past decade. For a Navy ship, cannibalization refers to taking parts off of one vessel to make another operational.
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The ship classes that have experienced the worst cannibalization rates were the Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships and the Wasp-class amphibious assault ships, according to GAO. That issue, as well as other related ship maintenance problems like severe casualty reports, have contributed to the Navy spending approximately an additional $2.5 billion annually on ship maintenance than it did in 2011, auditors concluded.
Speaking at an American Society of Naval Engineers event on Thursday, Pyle said the biggest driver of cannibalization is a lack of spare parts and “that’s an area where we can improve.”
“If you look at a ship that is forward deployed and it doesn’t have the component on board, it’s going to be several weeks before we can get that part,” he said.
Pyle is the director of surface warfare requirements in the office of the chief of naval operations. Internally, his job is called “N96,” and he is directly responsible for controlling how much money the service spends on its surface ships, including the stockpiles of spare parts it keeps on hand for when things break.
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Pyle said the surface fleet’s leadership has been holding regular “sustainment summits” to address cannibalization rates as well as other maintenance issues.
“We have a scheduled battle rhythm with [the surface warfare boss, Vice Adm. Roy] Kitchener, and we bring all of the folks that touch sustainment and touch ship maintenance together,” he said. The officers “spend a couple of days together to [identify] what the issue is, what barriers are there? Do we need to fix it? Or do we need to elevate it up” the chain of command?
During his remarks, Pyle did not directly address how the coronavirus pandemic impacted ship maintenance. But Navy officials told GAO that it has only made their job of supplying spare parts more difficult.
“According to Navy officials, since the pandemic started, supply chain slowdowns have also become more common, resulting in increased procurement and manufacturing lead times to obtain needed parts,” according to GAO’s report.
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