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Availabilities are the lifeblood of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility. The scheduled maintenance and modernization of the Navy’s vessels make up a huge part of the shipyard mission to maintain, modernize and retire the Navy’s fleet. It’s a goal that relies on the coordinated efforts of thousands of individuals at this shipyard, across the Navy, and with partner organizations. For more than 25 years, Carrier Team One has pulled together a wealth of tools and resources to help turn this collaborative communication need into a reality.
While every availability is unique, there are often a number of challenges, improvements and scenarios that have either been addressed in other availabilities, or that could be of benefit to future availabilities. In order to share this knowledge, CT1 integrates and aligns the efforts of contributing maintenance organizations into a total process that ensures project teams are provided with the best community knowledge, tools and support from planning through execution.
The CT1 online portal offers a wealth of resources by sharing items like hotwashes, retrospects, project events and documents. However, the relationships built between peers is often one of the most valuable tools offered by CT1. Clardon Gustafson, non-nuclear chief test engineer, Nimitz Project Team, said he has found his regular talks with counterparts at partner yards to be a great way to share ideas and troubleshoot questions.
When issues are more complex or formal, however, the CT1 Knowledge Market offers a place where anyone can ask a question and have dedicated staff members consolidate information to help solve challenges as they happen. The Knowledge Market team pulls details from previous availabilities and consolidates relevant information from other projects to help CT1 members find real-time solutions to their issues.
There are also dedicated staff members who can help get innovative ideas through the system for implementation in future projects.
“When you have an idea and you want to try something new, having someone who’s dedicated to help facilitate that—having someone who’s able to help and go push those ideas—has been pretty beneficial,” Gustafson said.
The ability to solve new problems and push new ideas has led to a big initiative on USS Nimitz (CVN 68) during its current availability. The Ship’s Force Work Release initiative, an idea that was first articulated only two years ago in the CT1 community, has been implemented for this availability, streamlining the release process for more than 700 ship’s force jobs during the availability.
And these are just some of the ways CT1 helps improve availabilities. Proven practice replications are also an important tool when it comes to sharing innovative ideas across the fleet. Molly Beach, risk manager, Reagan Project Gold Team, said PPRs—these new, out-of-the box methods that bring improvements to time, money, safety and schedule—are vital to share because they give other projects and shipyards an opportunity to see how new methods or ideas could be valuable to certain kinds of availabilities or to certain kinds of people, from risk managers to engineers to mechanics.
“The whole idea of Carrier Team One is to ask, improve and share to create that network of support within the carrier community across all shipyards,” Beach said. “It’s all about going and communicating with your counterparts.”
As CT1 and its network continues to grow, there is an effort to see more members from all levels and experiences participating in the knowledge sharing. For his part, Gustafson said he tries to bring in new members to the annual CT1 meeting to help encourage a new generation of contributors in CT1.
“I try to take someone new in the shipyard, who’s only been here two or three years,” Gustafson said. “That way they’re aware that this is something that’s out there—so if they have an idea, they feel empowered to share it.”
Participation in CT1 is one of the ways PSNS & IMF is able to get better with every availability, every time and show excellence in all we do. For more information, visit the CT1 website at usff.navy.deps.mil/sites/cnal/CT1/sitepages/home.aspx.
Story was originally published on Page 7 of the Aug. 19, 2021 issue of Salute. It may also be found at https://www.dvidshub.net/publication/issues/58723.
| Date Taken: | 08.19.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 12.17.2021 19:27 |
| Story ID: | 411500 |
| Location: | BREMERTON, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 194 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Carrier Team One: Ask. Improve. Share!, by Adrienne Burns, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
