OMT’s client has embarked on an ambitious journey to transform the way ships are built today, in pursuit of becoming the nation’s best-practice shipbuilder. OMT has supported this journey with consulting expertise from maturity analyses to the implementation of a detailed roadmap to realise the client’s vision.

THE CHALLENGE

Our client has delivered more than half of the current US Navy surface combatant fleet. Government budgets are contracting, while customer expectations are rising, exerting unprecedented levels of pressure on US Navy yards. In pursuit of sustaining and advancing its market position given the increasingly demanding and turbulent operating environment, the shipyard management decided to fundamentally challenge its operational status quo. Recognising the unique expertise and insights of OMT, a collaborative project was kicked off to define the shipyard’s future vision, generate detailed implementation plans as well as to deliver hands-on support during the transformation.

THE SOLUTION

In order to enable the realisation of the shipyard’s ambitions, OMT facilitated detailed analyses of current operations, spanning the entire shipyard. This was carried out in close collaboration with the organisation’s personnel across planning, design, engineering, construction, procurement and supply chain to name a few. The initial comprehensive analyses were used as a basis to benchmark the yard’s performance against international commercial and military application best practice. Following the initial analyses, gaps between the current level of operations and the future performance vision were defined. These insights defined the level of ambition for coming years, forming the basis for the development of the transformation roadmap. This roadmap covered a wide range of transformation activities spanning the shipyards end-to-end supply chain. These activities were split into immediate-, short- and long- term initiatives.

THE RESULT

The assessment on which the roadmap was based identified a cost reduction potential of the magnitude of several hundreds of million USD. The hands-on support focusing on improving production methods, optimising the end-to-end supply chain and strengthening the procurement processes has put the shipyard well on its way to realising the full potential of savings estimated in the initial analyses. Most importantly, OMT’s close collaboration and coaching approach has enabled the organisation to maximise learning and ensure that the shipyard is able to sustain and increasingly drive the performance improvements going forward.