Hi everyone; this is Kevin. Today is Friday, February 4th.
Today I’m taking an opportunity to talk about the progress we’ve made so far this year. First, I’d like to thank everyone who played a role in getting our Groton shipyard and Quonset Point facility ready for the blizzard that hit the northeast this past weekend. All of our ships and key components were protected, and our facilities teams did a great job clearing the snow once the storm broke. We also did a tremendous job last Sunday preparing QP and Groton to get back to work on Monday. Well done and thanks to everyone involved for that effort.
It’s encouraging also to see our COVID cases continue to decrease consistent with the downward case trends in our region. I believe we’re moving out of the pandemic phase of COVID and into what’s referred to as the endemic phase, meaning the virus will continue to circulate but there will be fewer transmissions and fewer instances where people’s lives are threatened by the disease. While we remain in masks and continue to follow our protocols, I am looking for the opportunity to relax as soon as we reasonably can. We’re staying tuned with state and local regulations to make sure that we remain in compliance.
We’re off to a good start this year when it comes to safety. I’m focused on continuing our year-over-year improvement, and in setting another safety record in 2022. But I need your help to get there by thinking about your own safety and watching out for those around you. We do have a couple of areas of concern. We need to stay vigilant about fire prevention, and we need to be aware of our surroundings when going to and from our jobs. About one-third of our Lost Workday Injuries are caused by these “to and from” injuries. Remember the expression “walking is working.” So please folks, look up and around as you arrive to and exit the job each day. Given the weather and time of year, we need to ensure we’re especially careful on wet and potentially icy surfaces here and at home.
In my podcast two weeks ago with our VP of Quality, Megan Roberts, Megan outlined the efforts underway to move Electric Boat toward a culture of quality; essentially meaning that we continue to develop an environment where quality is a part of every action we take. In 2022, each directorate across Electric Boat will be working on a Total Quality Culture Roadmap to assess their organization’s performance related to quality, and we all have a role to play. We’ll also identify opportunities for improvement and take meaningful action. You’ll be hearing a lot more about this in the coming weeks.
Our Columbia program is continuing to move forward. Quad Pack 1 is complete, deck fabrication is about 85% complete for the lead ship and pressure hull fabrication is about 65% complete. Overall, we’re about 15% complete on lead ship construction.
In addition, we’ve made some significant accomplishments on the lead ship including blasting and painting of the reactor compartment aft bulkhead, and we landed the hull cylinder over the forward missile compartment bulkhead—those are important parts of the ships and important critical-path milestones. Also at QP, the motor module middle-level deck was flipped to ship’s position for outfitting. So we’re moving from that structural steel portion into more and more outfitting. And, on January 14th at Groton, Keith Glidden, a 43-year distinguished shipbuilder, outfitted the first hanger into a Columbia tank. Keith did this work on the Ohio class, and it’s altogether fitting that he had a chance to do it on the Columbia. So congratulations Keith and thank you for your service and commitment to Electric Boat.
Today, 794, PCU Montana, returned from her Alpha trials while yesterday, 793, PCU Oregon, departed for her combined Charlie and Insurv trials. We look forward to delivering both boats to the Navy in the coming weeks. I can speak on behalf of the Navy–those boats are sorely needed, and they can’t wait to get them in the fleet and get them operating.
We recently marked an important milestone for SSN 795, PCU Rickover, when the reactor compartment was closed in the drive to get to initial critical testing. Symbolically, the team accomplished the goal on January 27th, which also happens to be Admiral Rickover’s birthday.
With regard to module shipments, section 8/9 of 799, PCU Idaho, will be delivered to Groton from Quonset Point early next week. And in recent weeks, Virginia module shipments to Newport News have included the Command and Control Module for 800, PCU Arkansas and the Section 8 module for 801, PCU Utah.
We’ve also been making steady progress on our Block V, VPM boats. Specifically, we’ve installed all tanks to the 804’s Section 3C bulkhead, which positions us to complete all the major hot work at a faster pace than the previous boat, the 803. In addition, we’ve received all payload tubes for the 805 and they are in the process of being outfitted, which enables us to achieve 100% outfitting prior to loading the tubes in the boat. And we’ve reduced the time in the VPM Tube Insertion Fixture by more than 50% which puts us on the program pace for two-per-year payload tube modules. That’s a great accomplishment by the team over in the VPM building.
In Maintenance and Modernization, the USS Hartford team is completing hull cuts that improve access for our people and equipment removal. Overall, the smart start is progressing to the plan and continuing on schedule. That’s important; we want to get that boat back to the Navy as soon as possible. They’ve got work for her to do.
Construction of the South Yard Assembly Building also remains on schedule. You can really see day to day now some of the progress that we’re making. Erection of the steel columns is complete, and four trusses remain to be set on the roof. The topping-off ceremony is planned for early March, and many of you can see the insulated metal siding coming up and starting to cover the building.
That’s it for now. Thank you everyone for all your hard work and please stay safe. We’ll talk again soon.
Kevin
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