Interview: James E Turner Jr

Sea Power, Jul 1998

Has there been any shift of electronic design and construction expertise from Electric Boat to Bath? TURNER: Absolutely. In fact, it's stretching all the way to [team leader] Avondale on the LPD- 17 program. Electric Boat provided the expertise for the integrated product data environment [IPDE] required for that ship. Avondale has contracted directly with Electric Boat for some of it, and some of it is coming through Bath. We're trying to take the good things that we have from a technological point of view at Electric Boat and share them with Bath, and vice versa, and it's working very well.

We did the reengineering of the infrastructure at Bath with the same template, same models, and some of the same people that we used at Electric Boat and achieved similar results. Bath is also making a significant effort to implement modular subassembly and preoutfitting techniques. Bath has the highest percentage of preoutfitting of modules for surface combatants among the surface ship builders. They are not anywhere near where they are at Electric Boat, because they don't yet have a land-level facility, but we will soon begin construction of that as part of a $200-million modernization. It won't increase their capacity, but it does modernize them from sliding launches to land-level launches, which allows you to build the ship in sections and then roll it together the way we do submarines at Electric Boat. Bath's president, Allan Cameron, worked for Electric Boat at Quonset Point for a number of years, so he knows the techniques that were developed by Electric Boat for the Trident program and applied to subsequent ships. He continually pushes for a higher level of preoutfitting. which is a very strong cost-control tool.

We even shared Electric Boat's expertise in electronic design tools with our Land Systems people to help them with their IPDE approach for the Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle AAAV] they're developing for the U.S. Marine Corps.

Are there any particularly difficult technical challenges still to be overcome in the AAAV program? TURNER: There are always challenges with new programs. For example, I've never seen a new system that didn't have weight challenges if it has anything to do with water or flying. So there are still a few technical challenges associated with the program but, according to all indications that I have, it's coming along very nicely. In fact, it could be accelerated. If there was a little more money available, I think the Marine Corps would push it forward.

Marines are in residence in the same development facility [in Woodbridge, Va.] as our program personnel and are working together with our people on integrated product teams to an even greater degree than we have experienced with the Navy on the New Attack Submarine program. In fact, the Marine Corps' program manager is in residence at the facility one floor above our program manager.

Any final thoughts for our Sea Power readers? TURNER: If we stop and take inventory, with the things that we've developed at Electric Boat and picked up with our acquisitions of Bath Technology Systems and Computing Devices International's U.S. operations [now General Dynamics Information Systems], coupled with the capabilities at our Land Systems, Armament Systems, and Defense Systems divisions, we have a formidable array of technologies to bring to a program that we didn't have a few years ago. It makes a lot of difference. What it does is put us in a position to be a true prime contractor. If we don't have a particular technology available, we at least know enough about it so that we can go buy it intelligently. We're not at some other company's mercy. One example is the processing expertise we now have at Information Systems. We don't expect to be a major supplier of radars or sonars or what have you. But we're going to be a key provider of platforms into which those things can be integrated.