By Susan Lawson
NORFOLK, Va. – Representatives from Naval Sea Systems Command Regional Maintenance Office and Commander, Navy Regional Maintenance Centers visited the USS Thunderbolt and the USS Tempest, June 12 in Norfolk, Va.
The commands met with the ships’ project teams to review their safety and fire prevention practices, as well as the maintenance schedules and current quality of work.
“Our NRMO organizations are located across almost all Navy waterfronts, and are aimed at supporting our unwavering goal of improving first time quality, enhancing safety, reducing total operational costs, and more closely adhering to ships’ maintenance schedules,” said Commander, Navy Regional Maintenance Centers Rear Adm. David Gale.
NRMOs serve as a primary point of contact for critique notification to CNRMC, and provide independent oversight of surface ship maintenance with particular focus on critical systems identified in Naval Sea Systems Instruction 5400.108A, the Policy for Quality Management of Work on Non-Nuclear Surface Ships Critical Systems.
These maintenance offices are responsible for performing periodic surveillance of in-process work; conducting audits of areas of particular focus to the fleet such as procedure and work control compliance; attending Enhanced Process Control Procedures Ready To Start events; participation in Integrated Project Team development events; as well as docking, undocking, critique, certification, production, and progress meetings.
“The NRMOs support the Surface Ship Maintenance community by reviewing maintenance and repair work to ensure adherence to quality, technical, and safety standards at the operational, intermediate, and depot levels,” said Gale.
“Since the stand-up of the NRMOs, we have already seen marked improvements in root cause analyses and the critique processes, allowing us at CNRMC to work with the RMCs to provide clarification of policies and standards for Foreign Material Exclusion. The NRMO’s efforts have also led to the identification of problems with machinery layup and planned maintenance systems, as well as the identification of several safety related problems,” said Gale.
The origins of NRMOs began in May 2011, following several negative trends in surface ship maintenance. As a response to these, Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy directed NAVSEA’s Engineering Field Representatives begin performing third party oversight of non-nuclear surface ship maintenance similar to the role of NAVSEA Shipyard Representative's Office and Naval Reactors Representative's Office at the public shipyards. His establishment of NRMOs followed suit.
McCoy charged CNRMC to implement the NRMOs on October 2011, and since that time, offices have been established at Norfolk Ship Support Activity Regional Maintenance Center in Norfolk, Va.; Southeast Regional Maintenance Center in Mayport, Fla.; Southwest Regional Maintenance center in San Diego; and at Northwest Regional Maintenance Center in Bremerton, Wash.
An additional NRMO is slated for stand-up this August at the Hawaii Regional Maintenance Center in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
According to Frank Murphy, CNRMC’s assistant director for technical oversight who serves as the NRMOs’ program manager, the other NRMO offices share lessons learned and collaborate several times a week through phone conferences. They regularly confer to discuss the most effective ways to evaluate ship maintenance processes; implement quality improvement efforts, lower cost, improve safety, and shorten maintenance schedules.
All NRMOs also work closely with ships’ project teams to continually improve surface ship maintenance efforts in the areas of work control, safety and technical rigor oversight and management.
“Our partnership with the NAVSEA and the NRMOs has been a valuable one,” said Gale. “To date, we have worked collaboratively to improve the quality and schedules of non-nuclear surface ship maintenance by the enforcement of standards. We will continue to work with NAVSEA and the field offices to advance the goals and initiatives of the surface maintenance community.”
For more information about NAVSEA Regional Maintenance Offices, contact CNRMC’s Frank Murphy at: william.f.murphy@navy.mil
For more information about Commander, Navy Regional Maintenance Centers, visit:
http://www.navsea.navy.mil/CNRMC/default.aspx
For more information about Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), visit: http://www.navsea.navy.mil/
| Date Taken: | 06.14.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 06.14.2012 10:46 |
| Story ID: | 89969 |
| Location: | NORFOLK, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 194 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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