NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – This week the Secretary of the Navy argued here that the U.S. Navy and industry should move toward the standards of shipbuilding he’s seen in South Korea and Japan in a recent trip.
“When my team and I went to South Korea we were floored at the level of digitization and real time monitoring and shipbuilding progress with readily available information down to the individual pieces of stock materials – where top executives can tell us to the day when ships would actually be delivered. It’s an ethos, commitment to constant improvement. That is the foundation of their reputation, consistently delivering on time on budget, even during COVID,” Secretary Carlos Del Toro said here Tuesday during the 2024 annual Sea Air Space conference.
In February Del Toro visited shipyards in South Korea and Japan to tour their capabilities and speak with executives about both adding Navy voyage repair availabilities and potentially having the companies invest in U.S. shipyards.
He reiterated his perspective that the “daunting challenges” in the U.S. shipbuilding industry is an opportunity for these South Korean companies like Hanwha Ocean and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries to invest in American shipyards.
While Del Toro previously argued firms based outside the U.S. could invest in re-opening old, closed shipyards in the U.S., he has more recently shifted to pushing companies to repeat what Australia’s Austal did in creating Austal USA in Mobile, Ala., or Italy’s Fincantieri did in buying the Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin.
While he said America’s maritime shipbuilding industry capacity has atrophied with underinvestment over the past 40 years, it must reverse the trend with more investment to limit further damage.
“Right now, we build the most capable warships in the world and shipyards that are sometimes decades behind the global technological standard. This is an inefficient approach requiring far too much time workforce and taxpayer dollars. And it is certainly an approach that is wholly inadequate to pace our 21st century competitors,” Del Toro said.
“Our Korean and Japanese allies, for example, build high quality ships, including an Aegis destroyer, for a fraction of the cost we do.”
Relatedly, the secretary told reporters following his remarks that the new Navy Science and Technology (S&T) Strategy released this week will particularly look into aiding the shipbuilding industry.
It will look at “what science and technology innovations can we bring to the table that perhaps aren’t being used here in the United States, but are being used elsewhere with our partners, for example, to help digitize our public shipyards.”
Del Toro added “a lot of emphasis in the S&T strategy has been placed on shipbuilding to get us to a better place.”
The public-facing S&T Strategy document released this week does not speak to this issue beyond generally promoting collaboration with allies on technology.