The Navy recently issued a Request For Information (RFI) seeking more sources able to support Constellation-class frigate design and follow-on construction amid significant delays in the program’s schedule.
The notice, posted Nov. 15, said the FFG-62 Constellation-class frigate program office (PMS 515) is conducting market research to identify “potential ship construction sources that possess the capability to accomplish future program requirements.”
They are specifically looking to find qualified U.S. surface combatant shipbuilders that can be sources for future design or follow-on construction of the frigates.
The Navy said activities they are contemplating to ultimately award to these kinds of sources include necessary engineering, technical, material procurement and production support; configuration management; Class Standard Equipment (CSE) support class flight and baseline upgrades and new technology support; data and logistics management; lessons learned analysis; testing and acceptance trials; post-delivery test and trials; and post shakedown availability support.
Other activities could include achieving reliability and maintainability requirements; system safety program support; material and fleet turnover support; shipyard engineering team; turnkey support; crew indoctrination; design tool/design standardization; detail design development; and other technical and engineering analyses to support the frigate.
Fincantieri Marinette Marine won the original frigate contract in April 2020 for up to 10 ships. At the time, the Navy boasted thanks to a competition focused on using a parent design the cost and timeline issues should be minimized, with Fincantieri using a modified version of its European FREMM frigate (Defense Daily, April 30, 2020).
However, by this year the Navy has had significant delays in frigate production. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro’s 45-day shipbuilding review found the lead frigate is running three years late, with the design work not complete by then (Defense Daily, April 3).
A May Government Accountability Office (GAO) report argued the Navy’s significant design changes from the parent design as well as inadequate functional design review practices and botched metrics obscured actual design progress and led to construction starting prematurely, before the design was stable enough (Defense Daily, May 29).
The notice said PMS 515 “invites all U.S. surface combatant shipbuilding sources who are interested in the FFG 62 Class ships” to submit information to demonstrate their ability to fulfill the requirements.
Over a year ago, an HII executive confirmed the company was still interested in potentially becoming the second shipbuilder for the frigate (Defense Daily, June 28, 2023).
While the Navy awarded Fincantieri for the first 10 hulls, it previously indicated the government was open to adding a second shipbuilder to increase production rates. The government included a Technical Data Package in the original contract such that another manufacturer could get the information needed to build more frigates.
Last year, former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday told a Senate panel it was important to eventually add a second frigate shipbuilder to eventually boost production to the preferred rate of two to three ships per year (Defense Daily, April 19, 2023).
This latest notice instructed respondents to contact the Navy within three days to receive the full details of the market research requested and initial responses are due by Nov. 22.