VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. \u2014 The U.S. Navy is pouring billions of dollars into shoring up the companies that help build nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But these companies, and especially prime contractors General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII\u2019s Newport News Shipbuilding, cannot hire enough people to keep up with demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So they\u2019re outsourcing work that was previously done in-house, two admirals said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rear Adm. Jon Rucker, the program executive officer for attack submarines, said the Navy spent more than $1 billion between fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2022, and that the service is committed to $2.4 billion from fiscal 2023 to fiscal 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These funds cover supplier development, workforce development, shipbuilder infrastructure, the development of technologies such as additive manufacturing and nondestructive testing, government oversight, and strategic outsourcing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In terms of tonnage of submarine construction, the Navy will see a 5.5 times increase from FY11 to FY25. But the number of suppliers has dropped to about 5,000, compared to 17,000 companies during the last submarine construction surge in the 1980s, Rucker said last month at an American Society of Naval Engineers conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rucker said the Navy is trying to target its investments where it can make the most impact: 350 companies are considered \u201ccritical suppliers\u201d in the submarine-industrial base, and 55% of those are located in six states. So workforce development dollars are focused on those states to do the most good for critical suppliers in need of more workers. This effort could see the establishment of new training sites in Virginia and Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Outsourcing is becoming more important as some regions realize they aren\u2019t receiving enough interest for people to join the manufacturing industry, despite federal and state government efforts to create manufacturing training opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are saturated in certain areas of the country. The Northeast is one of those. If we cannot bring the people to the work, we\u2019re going to take the work to the people,\u201d Rucker said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, he explained, Electric Boat outsources 1.1 million hours\u2019 worth of work a year and Newport News Shipbuilding outsources 900,000 hours as they build new Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By 2025, that combined 2 million hours will grow to 5 million, he said \u2014 which equates to half the work to build a Virginia submarine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rucker said companies across the U.S. are building structural pieces of submarines, including some large modules, that were previously built at Electric Boat and Newport News facilities. Now they\u2019re constructed by companies with available workers and space, and then shipped to the shipyard for assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rear Adm. James Downey, the program executive officer for aircraft carriers, spoke of outsourced work in terms of the structural units that come together to create the carrier\u2019s hull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are outsourcing like crazy,\u201d he told Defense News at the conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the future aircraft carrier Enterprise, \u201cwe\u2019re at almost 200 units out of 1,000 units. We\u2019re building Enterprise here [in Virginia], we\u2019re building Enterprise in South Carolina, we\u2019re building Enterprise on the Gulf Coast. It\u2019s pretty awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Downey suspects the amount of outsourcing will increase over time, which creates more oversight work for the Navy, he said, as well as the need to locate experts from the program office with companies unfamiliar with building ship structures and working with the service\u2019s new digital blueprints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He noted that Newport News \u2014 the sole shipbuilder for carriers \u2014 is struggling to hire enough workers and is already using leased labor to supplement the union workers employed directly by the yard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Downey said companies like W International in South Carolina and Fairlead Structures in Virginia are building some 189 hull units for Enterprise. \u201cTwo dozen-ish have come in so far from various suppliers: so far, quality is OK,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n