The genesis of the Virginia class came about in the early 1990s, when a half-dozen Navy program managers and engineers, together with EB, decided to revamp the way that submarines were built. At the time, Boeing was pioneering computer-assisted design and design-build processes with its 777 airplane. The Navy decided to model itself after that program, as well as after similar programs at Caterpillar, Chrysler, and Northrop Grumman.
At EB's suggestion, the Navy agreed to relinquish control of the design in favor of a more collaborative process. EB then reconstituted its departmental structure into 11 cross-functional teams, each one corresponding to a vertical slice of the submarine: stern, engine room, reactor compartment, bow, and so on. Each team included piping experts, electricians, engineers, navy engineers, waterfront supervisors, key vendors and suppliers, and officers. Taking a lesson from Boeing's inclusion of flight crews on the 777's design-build teams, the Navy and EB made the fleet -- those who drive, build, and maintain the ship -- part of each team. The old model of leadership gave way to the new model -- one based on collaboration, dialogue, and collective responsibility.
Information gathering and participation were top priorities. In 1992, before the Virginia class even had a name, Captain Paul Sullivan, then cost, producibility, and COEA (Cost Operations Effectiveness Analysis) team leader, started what came to be known as the Good Ideas Database. Working with EB, he sent out a call for ideas to the entire submarine fleet. "We collected 1,200 ideas in all," says Sullivan, 48. "We got ideas from the shipbuilder, from the design agent, from the combat-systems designers, and from looking at past classes of ships -- what went wrong, what was continually going wrong."
It's a scene from just about every old submarine movie: The officer of the deck "hangs on" the periscope and peers through a maze of mirrors, prisms, and lenses. The navigator plots his course using paper charts, pencils, and straight edges. The sailors who drive the boat use airplane-style hydraulic steering wheels. The sonar, radio, power-plant control, and weapons stations are stretched rooms apart, down long corridors and through bulkhead hatches. Sailors sit at a bank of switches, dials, and levers, while one supervisor relays information to the commanding officer through a headset system that connects ranking officers only.
Those old-style submarines were outfitted with Navy-designed, heavy-duty electrical components built to withstand the shock of an explosion. The system was durable -- too durable, in fact. As technology evolved, the old way proved too inflexible, unable to keep up with the pace of change. The Navy realized that its onboard systems had to be faster, flexible, more modular. The sub, the Navy realized, had to be reinvented as a vehicle for change.
The Virginia class is the result of that reinvention. Instead of building heavy-duty equipment, the Navy now builds a heavy-duty, shock-absorbing internal frame that flexes at the joints to absorb stress. The electrical equipment itself is as sensitive as a desktop PC -- and virtually as upgradable, because it is made from mass-produced, off-the-shelf commercial elements. The Navy can order its circuit boards, processors, video displays, and keyboards from a catalog. The cabinetry that houses the electrical equipment is plug-and-play. All of the cooling and wiring is in place; just rack out the old system, and rack in the new. Even the photonics masts -- which have replaced the old-style periscopes -- can be swapped out in 72 hours.
This upgradability means that the Navy can make ongoing improvements -- and that input from the fleet is a valuable source of operating feedback. As the sub is updated, the database evolves. Shipyard terminals make the information available to workers on-site. EB is also working closely with the group that disassembles submarines to structure its information-tracking system. Every part of the submarine is cataloged so that workers know where potential hazardous waste is located and how to dispose of it.
So what's the most radical change in the submarine's design? Information flow and access are at the center of the design philosophy. While the Virginia class's maximum speed and total weapons capacity are lower than that of its predecessor, its information-gathering suite is unparalleled. Its combat systems will be linked to external targeting and intelligence grids as part of a concept that the Navy calls Network Centric Warfare, a network in which submarines are considered key "nodes."
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