Navy Gets Underway on Shipyard Upgrades

1) The Navy’s four public shipyards: Norfolk Naval Shipyard at Norfolk, Virginia; Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery, Maine; Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility at Bremerton, Washington; and Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

2) The shipyards are all government-owned, government-operated facilities, part of the Navy’s organic industrial base, and are all considered critical to national security and readiness.

3) The Navy’s first-ever ”Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan” was delivered to Congress earlier this year, and spells out how the four shipyards will be upgraded and improved to better serve the fleet.

That plan focuses on shipyard drydock recapitalization, facility layout and optimization and equipment modernization.

5) While physical infrastructure improvements at Navy shipyards are underway, improvements in other areas, such as the training of workers, has already shown great success, the secretary said.Spencer told lawmakers that in years past, training a shipyard employee might have taken as many as four years. But now, he said, that training time has been reduced to as little as a year for skills like marine machinists and pipefitters.