Navy Ship Maintenance: Actions Needed to Address Maintenance Delays for Surface Ships Based Overseas
Fast Facts
U.S. Navy ships are based at homeports in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The United States relies on them to deter threats, strengthen partnerships, and provide strategic presence overseas.
The Navy has persistently underestimated the time and work required to maintain these ships and keep them ready to carry out their missions. For example, the overseas ships we analyzed were in maintenance a total of 3,475 days longer than planned in FY 2014 through 2018—thousands of days that ships were unavailable for operations.
We made 5 recommendations, including that the Navy comprehensively analyze and address maintenance delays.
The cruiser USS Shiloh on patrol in the East China Sea
A helicopter flies above a military ship at sea
Highlights
What GAO Found
The Navy maintains the 38 surface ships based in Japan, Spain, and Bahrain through a mix of Navy-operated facilities and private contractors. The Navy uses different maintenance approaches at each location depending on the number and type of ships based there and the Navy and private contractor industrial base available to provide maintenance support. For example, to support the 12 surface ships based in Yokosuka, Japan, the Navy uses both private contractors and its Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center, which is subsidized by the government of Japan. In Rota, Spain, the Navy relies on one Spanish contractor to maintain the four ships based at that location.
Maintenance on surface ships based overseas took longer than planned for 50 of the 71 maintenance periods—or about 70 percent—started during fiscal years 2014 through 2018. More than half of these maintenance delays lasted a month or longer, which reduced the ships' availability for training and operations. Various factors contribute to delays, such as discovery that unanticipated additional repairs are needed, missed planning milestones, or shortages of key staff. However, the Navy's efforts to understand delays often solely focus on individual maintenance periods and result in steps to improve specific issues related to maintenance timeliness. The Navy has not conducted a comprehensive analysis of maintenance delays to systematically identify and address their root causes. Without such an analysis, the Navy cannot effectively target corrective actions, and risks continuing to underestimate maintenance needs and the time and resources required to address them.
The Navy Completed the Majority of the 71 Maintenance Periods Started during Fiscal Years 2014 through 2018 Later than Planned
The Navy has developed a new maintenance approach for ships in Japan, but has not assessed the risks associated with this approach or analyzed the overseas maintenance requirements for a growing fleet. The new maintenance approach calls for ships to obtain all required maintenance in the United States before and after going overseas, among other things. The Navy decided to implement this approach in Japan based on use of the approach in Spain—where ships have experienced few maintenance delays. However, the Navy has not assessed the risks posed by differences between the operating environments in Spain and Japan, or by shortfalls in maintenance capacity at U.S. facilities. The Navy also plans to replace aging ships in Bahrain as it grows the fleet to 355 ships, but it did not analyze or include overseas maintenance requirements in its long-range plan. Without assessing the risks challenges may pose to the success of its new maintenance approach in Japan or analyzing the requirements of a growing fleet, the Navy could be hindered in its ability to ensure these ships are ready and available for operations.
Why GAO Did This Study
To meet operational demands, the Navy has doubled the number of ships based overseas since 2006. Navy ships based abroad represent about 14 percent of the total fleet and are there to provide presence, deter threats, quickly respond to crises, and build partnerships. Effective and timely maintenance is essential to meet strategic objectives, fulfill operational requirements, and ensure ships reach their expected service lives.
House Report 115-676 included a provision that GAO assess maintenance for ships based overseas. This report: (1) describes existing maintenance capacity and approaches the Navy uses for surface ships based overseas, (2) assesses the extent to which the Navy completed maintenance periods as scheduled in fiscal years 2014 through 2018 and analyzes factors contributing to any delays, and (3) evaluates the extent to which the Navy has assessed any challenges facing future overseas maintenance efforts. To address these objectives, GAO analyzed Navy policies and maintenance data from fiscal years 2012 through 2018, and interviewed officials, including from Naval Sea Systems Command and overseas fleets and maintenance centers.
Recommendations
GAO is making five recommendations, including that the Navy comprehensively analyze and address maintenance delays, and assess the risks and analyze requirements of future overseas maintenance efforts. The Navy concurred with GAO's recommendations.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Office of the Secretary of the Navy | The Secretary of the Navy should assign responsibility to an entity to conduct a single, comprehensive systematic analysis of overseas surface ship maintenance delays. (Recommendation 1) |
The Department of Defense concurred with this recommendation and, in August 2020, the Department of the Navy provided an action plan to respond to our recommendations, including identifying an entity within Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to lead the analysis of overseas surface ship maintenance delays. The department provided additional information in March 2021 on the formation of an analysis team composed of representatives from across relevant organizations and under the direction of NAVSEA. In August 2022 the Navy provided the resulting proposed plan to address delays in response to our recommendation. The analysis and resulting plan identified four main contributing factors to delay and the plan included several results-oriented. While we await further Navy information to close our third recommendation, the NAVSEA actions to conduct the analysis and develop a plan address our first recommendation.
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| Office of the Secretary of the Navy | The Secretary of the Navy should ensure the designated entity conducts a comprehensive, systematic analysis to identify the underlying, interrelated causes of overseas surface ship maintenance delays. (Recommendation 2) |
The Department of Defense concurred with this recommendation and, in August 2020, the Department of the Navy provided an action plan to respond to our recommendations, including information pertaining to its planned analysis of maintenance delays for surface ships based overseas. In March 2021 the department provided additional information regarding the analysis it conducted in response to our recommendation, and in August 2022 provided the resulting proposed plan to address delays. The Navy identified a number of contributing factors to delays and based on their analysis identified the following four main drivers: 1. addition of maintenance work after the maintenance package is awarded; 2. shortage of government civilian personnel; 3. maintenance performance shortfalls; and 4. delays related to ships' crews. We also identified these as possible causes for delays to surface ship, submarine, and aircraft carrier maintenance delays in this and other GAO reports.
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| Office of the Secretary of the Navy | The Secretary of the Navy should use the results of the analysis to develop a plan to address surface ship maintenance delays overseas. Such a plan should incorporate results-oriented elements, including analytically based goals, identification of risks to achieving those goals, identification of required resources and stakeholders, metrics to measure progress, and regular reporting on progress. (Recommendation 3) |
The Department of Defense concurred with this recommendation, and in August 2020, the Department of the Navy provided an action plan to respond to our recommendations, including information pertaining to its analysis of and plan to address overseas surface ship maintenance delays. In August 2022 the Navy provided the resulting proposed plan to address delays in response to our recommendation. The Navy's plan focused on results-oriented elements to address the top-three contributing factors the Navy identified in its analysis. For example, the plan includes actions, metrics, and required resources and stakeholders to reduce the issue of maintenance work being added at late-stage phases in the planning cycle. The Navy also identified risks to achieving its goals for the three contributing factors addressed in the plan, and stated it issued related policies or instructions to ensure continued monitoring. In June 2024, the Navy provided documentation and other information regarding its updated policies to demonstrate the actions it had taken to implement the plan, as well as other forthcoming efforts aimed at improving ship maintenance.
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| Office of the Secretary of the Navy | The Secretary of the Navy should ensure that Naval Sea Systems Command assesses and mitigates risks posed by any challenges, such as persistent delays and capacity limitations, to successful implementation of its new maintenance approach in Japan. (Recommendation 4) |
The Department of Defense concurred with this recommendation, and, in August 2020, the Department of the Navy provided actions it planned to take, including for Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to assess and mitigate any risks to successful implementation of the planned maintenance approach in Japan. This approach, which was based on the shorter but more frequent maintenance of ships based in Spain, relies on ships having received all required maintenance and modernization prior to being homeported in Japan. In February 2024 the Navy stated it had used the analysis of ship maintenance delays it conducted in response to other recommendations in our report to assess the planned maintenance approaches for ships homeported in Japan. According to the Navy, the results of its assessment resulted in changes to the maintenance strategies for both destroyers and amphibious ships based in Japan, among other actions. In August 2024 the Navy provided further information and documentation of their actions to ensure they assess and mitigate risks to maintenance in Japan. For example, using the results of its analysis, which identified several contributing factors to overseas ship maintenance delays, NAVSEA developed a checklist to examine ships' maintenance and modernization progress and requirements prior to moving from the United States to homeports in Japan, as well as to Spain. The Navy updated the technical foundation paper for destroyers and recommended changes to the fleet response plan for amphibious ships homeported in Japan to include these checklists. According to NAVSEA documentation, they also now track the maintenance and modernization health of any ships that may be identified for overseas homeports on a semiannual basis, in coordination with the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and others. According to the Navy, these actions will help minimize the amount of maintenance expected to be completed at overseas homeports to help ensure the ships will not overburden overseas ship-repair capacity while also enabling them to meet their increased operational demands.
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| Office of the Secretary of the Navy | The Secretary of the Navy should ensure that Naval Sea Systems Command conducts analysis to include overseas maintenance requirements as part of its long-term maintenance plan to support the planned growth and readiness of the fleet. (Recommendation 5) |
The Department of Defense concurred with this recommendation and, in August 2020, the Department of the Navy provided an action plan to respond to our recommendations during Fiscal Year 2021. In June 2021, the Navy provided to Congress its Long-Range Plan for Maintenance and Modernization of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2022, and in March 2022 provided us additional information. As a result of our recommendation, the Navy included analysis and consideration of its inventory of ships homeported overseas, as well as the corresponding infrastructure, capacity, and other capabilities needed to maintain ships now and in the future. The report also, at least for FY 2022, explains that these requirements are based on projections that, while the Navy fleet is growing, the inventory of ships homeported overseas is expected to remain stable for the next 30 years. While the types and sizes of overseas ships may vary in future, including overseas infrastructure and maintenance capabilities in its long-range planning will help ensure these requirements are considered should future fleet size or homeport plans change. We have closed this recommendation as implemented as of April 2022.
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