Marinette Marine Corporation

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Ship shape   Marinette Marine built the first-ever Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) for the US Navy, and the company anticipates a large contract to build several more. CEO Richard McCreary talks to April Terreri.   The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is a marvel of engineering design that utilizes a modular platform resulting in the shipÔÇÖs flexible configurations. ÔÇ£Its three missions include anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures and anti-surface warfare,ÔÇØ explains Richard McCreary, CEO of Marinette Marine Corporation in Marinette, Wisconsin. The LCS is also designed for missions in homeland defense, maritime intercept and special operations. Marinette Marine delivered the US NavyÔÇÖs very first LCSÔÇöthe USS FreedomÔÇösoon to be deployed by the Navy.  LCSs are unique ships, designed for fast maneuverability in shallow, near-coastal waters. The USS Freedom, 378 feet in length, is a specialty ship operating in shallow waters. ÔÇ£It can operate in waters where destroyers and other blue-water ships of the US Navy cannot operate,ÔÇØ McCreary explains. ÔÇ£LCSs do have the capability to deploy worldwide and sail blue waters, but because they draw less water, they can get into areas that the balance of the Navy cannot reach.ÔÇØ  Marinette Marine is a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin, the primary contractor with the US Navy for building and delivering the LCSs. ÔÇ£Lockheed is the lead systems integrator for the ship, providing all the C4ISR [command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] components,ÔÇØ McCreary reports.  The modular design allows an LCS to be reconfigured very quickly, depending on which of the three major missions it will undertake. ÔÇ£Any one of these mission packages can be deployed pierside in as little as four days, so these ships are designed to be multi-mission ships,ÔÇØ McCreary says. A critical factor of the LCS is its highly automated design, requiring fewer people to crew the ship. ÔÇ£A comparably sized ship crewed in the normal manner of the US Navy would require more than 200 people aboard. But the LCS goes to sea with a base crew of only 40 people, with surge berthing for up to 35 more for the aviation detachment and mission specialists, depending on the mission modules deployed with the ship.ÔÇØ  The ships carry a hangar capable of storing two MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters or one MH-60S and three unmanned Fire Scout helicopters built by Northrop Grumman. The Fire Scouts are capable of autonomous flight and are weaponized to run patrols.  ÔÇ£Because of its missions that must deal with multiple surface targets such as small boat swarms, the LCS is designed with a semi-planing hull,ÔÇØ notes McCreary. ÔÇ£This is quite interesting because, for a 378-foot-long ship displacing about 3,000 tons, it travels well in excess of 42 knots, which is over 46 miles an hour. This is critical for getting in quickly and getting out quickly. Normal Navy ships cruise at about 22 knots.ÔÇØ  The shipÔÇÖs modularity is key to its missions, because mission modules can be upgraded easily as technology advances, states McCreary. ÔÇ£So this means that the ship doesnÔÇÖt become obsolete. The modules just get loaded aboard and plugged into the common backbone of the ship.ÔÇØ  On the strength of the success of the USS Freedom, and the fact that Marinette Marine is currently 20 percent into completing the second LCS for the NavyÔÇöthe USS Fort Worth, scheduled to deliver February 2012ÔÇöMcCreary feels the company is positioned well in vying for a Navy contract to build an additional ten LCSs. ÔÇ£The award would mean that we would become the lead shipyard for the LCS class. This could mean that our company could double in size over the next three years, in terms of revenues and the number of employees.ÔÇØ   Currently, the company has about 30 buildings on a 65-acre site, and it employs 950 people. It anticipates growing its workforce to about 1,800 people over a three-year period when it receives this contract. With current revenues around $250 million annually, the company expects to see close to a half billion dollars annually when awarded the Navy contract. The company is hopeful it will be successful in receiving the contract, scheduled to be awarded in the summer of 2010.  The contract will award to the winning bidder the right to construct two ships in 2010, followed by two ships every year up to 2014 for a total of ten ships. The Navy expects to build 55 of these ships, currently budgeted at about $460 million each.  The company has the experience, capability, facilities and institutional knowledge, which is a distinct advantage in vying for the contract, notes McCreary. He admits that the USS Freedom was a difficult build cycle. ÔÇ£There were a significant number of changes throughout the build cycle, which increased the survivability of the ship,ÔÇØ he says. ÔÇ£The best example of how difficult it was is that the USS Fort Worth was bid at a fixed price of 30 percent less man-hours than the lead ship, and we are performing to that bid.ÔÇØ He expects to achieve even further productivity improvements going forward.  Another benefit in the companyÔÇÖs corner is that it is owned by the Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri Marine Group. ÔÇ£With the Navy contract requiring that large quantity of ships, we believe we have another advantage in FincantieriÔÇÖs commitment to invest over $65 million in new capital at our shipyard to improve our productivity.ÔÇØ The company was purchased by Fincantieri from the Manitowoc Company early in 2009. Marinette Marine is a cleared US government contractor operating under a special security agreement with the US Defense Security Service.  Marinette Marine is also a supplier to other business segments. It was recently notified it will receive a contract worth about $123 million from the University of Alaska to build an Alaska-region research vessel. It also built and delivered the Mackinaw, a Great Lakes icebreaker, for the US Coast Guard; two series of ice-class buoy tenders for the Coast Guard; three commercial tugs for commercial operators running articulated tug barge units; three ferries for the City of New York; and a series of modular powered and non-powered units for the Navy designed to move material from ship to shore.  The company uses lean manufacturing practices. ÔÇ£This is particularly important because of the amount of material that goes into building a ship,ÔÇØ McCreary explains. ÔÇ£For instance, the control, staging and kitting of material is critical to cost performance as well as to the efficient outfitting and construction of the ship. We spend a great deal of time on process flow to eliminate the non-value-added steps that add cost. With every ship we build, we learn more about how we can do things better, smarter, faster and cheaper.ÔÇØ *┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á *┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á *