Title: Navy Ship Maintenance and Operation Costs Grew as Use Shrank Description: The U.S. Navy plays a critical role in U.S. national defense, as well as world commerce and keeping the seas open to trade. It faces a number of obstacles in maintaining and operating its fleet of ships. We recently looked at these issues and found some troubling long term trends that could impact national defense and spending. We learn more from GAO's Diana Maurer. Related GAO Work: GAO-23-106440, Weapon System Sustainment: Navy Ship Usage Has Decreased as Challenges and Costs Have Increased Released: January 2023 [Music] [Diana Maurer:] Over the last decade, the Navy has been spending more money to maintain its ships while using them less frequently. [Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report. Your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm your host, Holly Hobbs. While the U.S. Navy plays a critical role in U.S. national defense, as well as world commerce and keeping the seas open to trade. It faces a number of obstacles in maintaining and operating its fleet of ships. We recently looked at these issues and found some troubling, long-term trends that could impact national defense and spending. We'll find out more from GAO's Diana Maurer, an expert on defense weapons sustainment and a director in our Defense Capabilities and Management team. Thanks for joining us. [Diana Maurer:] Thank you very much. Glad to be here. [Holly Hobbs:] So, Diana, what's going on here? Why do we look at this and what did we find? [Diana Maurer:] So, we looked at how well the Navy was maintaining the ships that it uses all over the world, and how well they were addressing some of the challenges they face at maintaining and operating the systems. We specifically looked at ten different types of Navy ships--so aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships, those kinds of things. And we found that these ships faced persistent and worsening sustainment challenges. Sailors were removing parts from one ship and using them on another. The amount of time to perform maintenance was increasing and the amount of time that ships were spending on training or operations has been decreasing. [Holly Hobbs:] So you're talking about the cannibalization of parts from older ships to repair new ships. Why is that happening? Why isn't the Navy just able to get new parts? [Diana Maurer:] So cannibalization is something that happens across all weapons systems. In some respects it can make sense. If a ship is in maintenance and it has a part that another ship needs to go out and perform an operational mission, of course you're going to take it off the ship in repair and put it on the one that's going out to sea. But the problem is this creates extra work. You have to perform the same sort of maintenance twice, in effect. And it also is an outgrowth of spare parts shortages. We found that in nine of the ten ship classes that we looked at as part of our report, cannibalizations had increased in part because some of these ships are so old that the original manufacturers that made the parts are out of business. It takes more time to get the parts. And there's sometimes increased demand for parts as ships are getting older, as well. [Holly Hobbs:] And looking just at the maintenance issue, what were some of the reasons behind the increases in costs and delays that we saw? [Diana Maurer:] We saw some pretty significant increases in maintenance costs. They went up 24%, over $6 billion a year across the ten ship classes that we reviewed. We found a number of reasons behind this. One was that there's a shortage of trained maintenance personnel. Secondly, we found that when ships are going in to get repaired, they're finding other things that need to be repaired. So this is unscheduled maintenance. So that leads to longer maintenance periods and additional costs. And we also found that the Navy hasn't been sufficiently focused on thinking about sustaining its ships when it's building them. So there are some best practices that we think they should build into the acquisition of new ships that they haven't been fully addressing. [Holly Hobbs:] Our report wasn't just about maintenance issues and costs. We also found that operational costs were going up. What's going on there? [Diana Maurer:] So you're absolutely right. We found that the average costs for operating ships per hour increased across all the ship classes. We're looking at data across a ten year period. Over that time, the number of hours that the ships were in use for training or operation went down and the cost of maintenance went up. Some of that was reflected in the issues we talked about earlier, and some of the maintenance problems that the ships are facing are a little more complicated now than they were in the past. [Holly Hobbs:] So combined, what effects are these challenges having on the Navy? [Diana Maurer:] This impacts the Navy in two key respects. First and foremost, when ships require more time than planned for maintenance, that means less time for training and less time for operational missions. So those things have an impact on overall readiness. And secondly, it means that the Navy is spending more money on maintaining its ships. Money that could potentially be used for other things. [Holly Hobbs:] This is an issue we've reported on before. It's a long-standing issue. What, if anything, has the Navy or the Department of Defense done about it? [Diana Maurer:] So we've made dozens of recommendations to either the Navy or the Department of Defense to help improve the Navy's sustainment of its ships. This is across a wide body of reports that we've done over the past several years. And to its credit, the Navy has started to take action on a number of our recommendations. So, for example, the Navy is a multi-year, multi-billion dollar effort underway to improve the conditions at its public shipyards, where much of its ship repair is done. The Navy is also taking steps to improve maintenance schedules--so better planning of the material and the people it needs to repair its ships, as well as doing a better job of estimating how long it's actually going to take to complete those maintenance periods. So we're seeing some promising steps there. {MUSIC} [Holly Hobbs:] Diana just told us that the Navy faces delays and increasing costs in maintaining and operating its ships. And that while the Navy has taken steps to address these issues, weapon systems are still being used less, which impacts Navy readiness. So, Diana, what actions do we think the Navy or DOD should take to address these issues? [Diana Maurer:] So while we just talked about some of the things the Navy has done, there's still a number of open recommendations from GAO that the Navy still has to address. They can do a better job, for example, of managing what's known as their deferred maintenance backlog, which is maintenance that they know that they need to do, but they've delayed to a later time period. Secondly, they can do a better job of tracking the data and addressing challenges in how it executes its maintenance. So, having systems in place to ensure you have the right people, the right facilities, and the right parts at the right time to do the maintenance that needs to be done. Finally, they should take steps to ensure that when ships are delivered brand new to the Navy that they are designed and that they are built with maintenance and sustainment in mind. That saves money in the long run, as well as ensures that those ships are able to be used operationally for decades to come. [Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of this report. [Diana Maurer:] Over the last decade, the Navy has been spending more money to maintain its ships while using them less frequently for training and operations. By addressing its various sustainment challenges, the Navy will get a better value for the money that it's spending to operate its fleet and be better positioned to meet its national security missions. [Holly Hobbs:] That was Diana Maurer talking about GAO's recent review of the Navy's weapon systems sustainment maintenance. Thanks for your time, Diana. [Diana Maurer:] Thank you very much. [Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and make sure to leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing. For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at GAO.gov