Jack Bergman Grills Witnesses: Does The Navy Have The ‘Capability’ To Meet U.S. Shipbuilding Needs?

3 days ago

During a House Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI) questioned witnesses on whether the Navy has the manpower to meet its needs.

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Transcript

00:00I now recognize the gentleman from the UP, Mr. Bergman.

00:04Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:08Being a Marine, I'm not going to waste your time, our time, or anybody else's time.

00:14So any one of you can, or all of you can, offer the comment if you choose.

00:19Does the Navy currently have the capability to put, pun intended, the necessary rudder

00:26into this big ship called ship building, ship repair, ship design?

00:32Is the Navy currently structured to actually be able to do that?

00:36Yes or no?

00:37You don't have to give me why they're not, just yes or no?

00:43No.

00:44No.

00:45Okay.

00:46Anybody else?

00:50Anybody going to offer a yes?

00:52Okay.

00:53Let's move on from that then.

00:58Somebody said commercial ship building still exists because of the Jones Act.

01:02I heard that within the last 24 hours.

01:05Anybody want to comment on that?

01:14As you well know, Congressman, there is very little commercial ship building done in American

01:19shipyards today.

01:20To the extent that there is some commercial ship building that does occur, it does seem

01:25to me that it is mostly Jones Act ships, which is building ships for intra-United States

01:32trade between one U.S. port and another U.S. port.

01:36So that is simply the current description of where we are today.

01:41Okay.

01:43Mr. O'Rourke, you cited the South Korean model, and we just talked about it in the

01:48last questioning.

01:51Could you name one or two things that the South Korean model exhibits, utilizes that

01:59maybe you think we should adopt?

02:04I think the Navy certainly has the opportunity to adopt those practices that the South Koreans

02:10follow that I mentioned in my testimony.

02:14In fact, I became aware of them via a conference of two professional societies that relate

02:22to marine engineers, and they were speaking mostly to Navy people.

02:26And it was their view that those practices should be imported into the Navy's own practices.

02:32So right from the outset, the whole reason for my awareness of South Korea's practices

02:38in that regard came from professional conferences where people working in the field were telling

02:45that to the Navy.

02:46Okay.

02:47So my understanding of what you said was some professionals who were attending a conference

02:52referenced the South Korean model as a positive.

02:55Okay.

02:56Are there any other countries that would come close to the South Korean model or something

03:04else that we could learn from or partner with or however you want to call it?

03:09Yes.

03:10The other country you could learn from is Japan.

03:11Japan and South Korea are often mentioned almost side by side when people talk about

03:16best practices on a world standard in shipbuilding.

03:21And there are two things that you could learn from the Japanese.

03:25One, which you can also learn from the South Korean, is how to manage shipyard operations

03:31more efficiently in terms of training new workers and staying on top of and managing

03:36the material flow through the shipyard.

03:38And secondly, you could learn from Japan the model of keeping the procurement rate steady

03:44even as force size changes by managing it at the back end through end of life decisions,

03:51not through upfront procurement rate tinkering.

03:54Okay.

03:55Are there any other countries, just are there any other countries anywhere else in the world,

04:01any part of the world that, I mean, right now we're focused kind of on one part of the

04:06world here, South Korea and Japan.

04:08Are there any other parts of the world that may not be as quite the top tier, but definitely

04:14would be?

04:15You could look at the European yards as well.

04:18Japan and South Korea are in competition with China.

04:22So they are trying to hold on to their market share against the Chinese shipbuilding.

04:28And so they are laser focused on making their own operations.

04:33So they're the same, not to use the example, that's the, a long time ago there was Ford,

04:37GM, and Chrysler all in Detroit area competing for the future of the market.

04:43This is a different example of that?

04:46It is because right now those three countries, China, South Korea, and Japan account for

04:51more than 90% of the world commercial shipbuilding market.

04:56China's like 40 to 50% and then South Korea, 30 more or less in Japan, 20.

05:02Okay.

05:03I want to give Dr. Seidel, I want to give Dr. Seidel, just a second, can Dr. Seidel

05:09give me a quick answer?

05:1010 seconds.

05:11Yeah, I just wanted to say you moved fast on that first question about are we structured

05:14to do the right thing?

05:16In my opinion, we can and are, and there's improvements that can be made, right?

05:21So I think it can happen.

05:22Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:23I yield back.

Jack Bergman Grills Witnesses: Does The Navy Have The ‘Capability’ To Meet U.S. Shipbuilding Needs?

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