Exercising the Cannibalisation Option

During the Navy Readiness hearing last week, at one point Representative Forbes raised the issue of cannibalisation as a major challenge facing the US Navy. However, details regarding the extent of the issue were never provided during the hearing.

Sam Lagrone at Janes wrote about the cannibalisation issue on Tuesday. This is what the ugly byproduct of 'efficiency measures' and 'enterprise' management solutions like "Just in Time Logistics" looks like:

The US Navy (USN) is relying heavily on a maintenance option the service considers "a drastic measure to only be utilised as a last resort" to allow its ships to pass their basic inspections and maintain the operational effectiveness of its fleet, according to previously unreleased data provided to the US Congress and obtained by Jane's .

In four consecutive quarters in 2010 the USN reported a rate of so-called "cannibalisation" of components between ships of on average twice the current allowable maximum allowed limit (MAL) of about one instance per four ships (.28), according to the data.

"It's not a cost efficiency when we look at our cannibalisation rates," Vice Admiral Kevin McCoy, Commander of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), told a US congressional committee on 12 July. "That means we're taking parts off one ship to put on another ship so we can meet the inspections."

Across the fleet in 2010, the USN saw an average rate of cannibalisation of .48, or about one instance per two ships across the entire year. Across the nine ship classes identified in the data, five ship classes exceeded the MAL.

The US submarine force had by far the highest instances of cannibalisation, according to the data. In the first three months of 2010 US nuclear attack boats (SSNs) and Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) saw a collective cannibalisation rate of 1.4, or about one-and-a-half instances per ship.

At the end of the report the article has a brilliant chart that breaks down the cannibalisation rates by type of US Navy vessel.

Cannibalisation incidents per ship per quarter

	Jan-Mar 2010	Apr-June 2010	July-Sep 2010	Oct-Dec. 2010	2010 Totals
Carriers	0.45	0.64	0.36	0.09	0.385
Sub Tenders	0.5	0	0	0	0.125
SSBN	1.43	1.07	1.29	0.86	1.1625
SSGN	1	0.25	0.5	0.75	0.625
SSN	1.4	1.26	1.19	0.93	1.195
Amphibs.	0.37	0.23	0.09	0.11	0.2
Combatants	0.27	0.41	0.31	0.31	0.325
Auxiliaries	0	0	0	0	0
Minesweepers	0.33	0.06	0.28	0.43	0.275
Average Across Classes	0.64	0.44	0.45	0.39	0.48

While the nation is at war, this is the behind the scenes ugly of what is keeping a peacetime Navy under current operational tempo, and to make matters worse this is before the budget cuts.

The chart is too generic to draw too many conclusions, but it certainly raises several questions.

I'd be very interested in reasons why the Amphibious Ships and Minesweepers have a lower rate of cannibalisation than other types of surface vessels. In particular, how is it possible the amphibious ships are suffering from low cannibalisation when in fact the average age of the amphibious ship force was much higher over this time period than the average age of the surface combatant force? I'd also be very curious to see if cannibalisation is more common in certain ports than it is others, for example, is it frequent in Norfolk but infrequent in San Diego, for example?

Because nuclear powered carriers, nuclear powered submarines, and surface combatants generally have more advanced electronics than other types of vessels, is it possible these numbers suggest the cannibalisation problem is more related to electronic technologies rather than engineering issues? If it is true the problem is more related to electronics than engineering, it begs the question what the aircraft numbers look like, but also how the Navy intends to get on top of this problem as the Navy starts to incorporate unmanned technologies into the fleet when by design unmanned technologies generally have more electronics than the manned systems they are replacing.

One more question... anyone notice there is apparently no cannibalisation taking place on ships operated by the Maritime Sealift Command? Those ships are operating at least as much as any other ship in the fleet - and probably more - so what is the MSC doing right that the Navy can learn?

The entire cannibalisation issue tells us a story... it is a story about COs who are held to ultimate responsibility and accountability for their ship, and who are doing everything they can to get their ship ready.

This is also a story about some Flag Officer somewhere (or more likely - several Flag Officers) playing with the system as if it is made up of monopoly money, and not being held accountable for their poor decisions made in the name of efficiency. With that said, the lines towards accountability go like this... until Congress and specifically the Senate holds military leaders accountable during promotion hearings, the blame needs to be properly assigned almost entirely on elected leaders unwilling to enforce accountability as a function of their oversight responsibilities. Until the Senate starts holding leaders accountable during promotions, the Senate reflects and enables a culture of leadership absent accountability in the Navy.