Post by ferryfast admin on Mar 9, 2012 14:47:00 GMT -5
More than $40M invested in Marinette shipyard
Another $22M earmarked for improvements in 2012
6:52 AM, Feb. 26, 2012
www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20120226/GPG03/202260604/More-than-40M-invested-Marinette-shipyard
MARINETTE — More than $40 million has been invested in the Marinette Marine Corp. shipyard as part of the U.S. Navy littoral combat ship program, and its parent company isn't done yet.
Massive improvements at the yard to support the LCS program have been ongoing for the past two years — including the expansion of the main assembly building and a new steel fabrication and production building. The Navy is building two designs of the littoral combat ship, one led by Lockheed Martin and the other by Austal USA.
To date, Marinette Marine's parent company — Fincantieri-Cantieri Navali Italiani SpA — has invested more than $40 million of $73.5 million in planned upgrades to the yard, said Chuck Goddard, president and CEO of Marinette Marine.
Another $22 million is earmarked for this year.
A new blast and paint shop is starting to take shape in the place of former steel fabrication buildings — structures that were almost seven decades old.
"It not only gets us the capacity we need, but it will allow us to do the blast and painting of the largest of the LCS modules," Goddard said. "Our current (blast and paint) facility, which is more than 30 years old, can only do about two-thirds of the LCS module, so we either have to do them outside or try to make room in Building 10, which isn't really equipped to do that blasting and painting."
The ships built at Marinette Marine are made up of 46 modular sections pulled together in the finished ship.
The new, enclosed blast and paint building is expected to open this summer. A shop to fit electrical and other equipment into the modules after painting also is among planned projects and is expected to open in 2013.
In 2009, the yard had the capacity to produce 1½ littoral combat ships a year. When facility upgrades are finished, production is expected to increase to 3½ ships a year, Goddard said.
Marinette Marine is working on three littoral combat ships, the future USS Fort Worth, Milwaukee and Detroit. Contracts for two more vessels, the future USS Little Rock and Sioux City, are expected to be issued next month, said Joe North, vice president of the Littoral Ship and Systems Programs for Lockheed Martin.
The Forth Worth is expected to undergo Navy acceptance trials this spring, with delivery to the service scheduled for mid-year, he said.
"That ship was constructed with 30 percent less labor hours than (LCS) 1, and we took a lot of lessons learned from 1 and rolled them back into" the USS Fort Worth, he said. The shipyard "found a lot of different ways to do it a second time and do it much quicker, more efficiently, and still meet all the requirements."
The Detroit is the second of up to 10 littoral combat ships Marinette Marine is expected to build for the U.S. Navy in the coming years — subject to congressional funding. Austal USA is building another 10 ships of a different design, but the same concept, in Alabama.
Both Austal and Lockheed Martin have delivered first-of-class ships to the Navy, which has reported some teething problems with both designs. The Navy said those issues are being addressed on the ships in service and future designs and that it would like to purchase as many as 55 of the vessels.
The Barack Obama administration budget issued earlier this month includes funding to the tune of $1.8 billion for four more of the ships in Fiscal Year 2013. The budget is subject to congressional approval.
North and the Navy have said delivering ships on schedule and on budget are key to helping secure continued funding for the program.
"We've created a program that keeps the production lines at all the vendors and facilities we use running," North said. "That helps keeps costs under control."
Employment at Marinette Marine is at about 1,200 people — about 500 more than in June, Goddard said. The company plans to add about 300 more hourly, union workers in the next four months.
Marinette Marine has worked with seven local high schools on vocational education, including teaching students some of the welding skills required by the Navy, Goddard said.
It is also one of the partner companies working with Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in the formation of a recently opened North Coast Marine Manufacturing Training Center in Marinette.
"We've been able to get people locally," Goddard said about hiring thus far. "But we're doing some other things because the concern is at some point we're going to exhaust the workforce here."
— nphelps@greenbaypressgazette.com and follow him on Twitter @nathanphelpspg.
Another $22M earmarked for improvements in 2012
6:52 AM, Feb. 26, 2012
www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20120226/GPG03/202260604/More-than-40M-invested-Marinette-shipyard
MARINETTE — More than $40 million has been invested in the Marinette Marine Corp. shipyard as part of the U.S. Navy littoral combat ship program, and its parent company isn't done yet.
Massive improvements at the yard to support the LCS program have been ongoing for the past two years — including the expansion of the main assembly building and a new steel fabrication and production building. The Navy is building two designs of the littoral combat ship, one led by Lockheed Martin and the other by Austal USA.
To date, Marinette Marine's parent company — Fincantieri-Cantieri Navali Italiani SpA — has invested more than $40 million of $73.5 million in planned upgrades to the yard, said Chuck Goddard, president and CEO of Marinette Marine.
Another $22 million is earmarked for this year.
A new blast and paint shop is starting to take shape in the place of former steel fabrication buildings — structures that were almost seven decades old.
"It not only gets us the capacity we need, but it will allow us to do the blast and painting of the largest of the LCS modules," Goddard said. "Our current (blast and paint) facility, which is more than 30 years old, can only do about two-thirds of the LCS module, so we either have to do them outside or try to make room in Building 10, which isn't really equipped to do that blasting and painting."
The ships built at Marinette Marine are made up of 46 modular sections pulled together in the finished ship.
The new, enclosed blast and paint building is expected to open this summer. A shop to fit electrical and other equipment into the modules after painting also is among planned projects and is expected to open in 2013.
In 2009, the yard had the capacity to produce 1½ littoral combat ships a year. When facility upgrades are finished, production is expected to increase to 3½ ships a year, Goddard said.
Marinette Marine is working on three littoral combat ships, the future USS Fort Worth, Milwaukee and Detroit. Contracts for two more vessels, the future USS Little Rock and Sioux City, are expected to be issued next month, said Joe North, vice president of the Littoral Ship and Systems Programs for Lockheed Martin.
The Forth Worth is expected to undergo Navy acceptance trials this spring, with delivery to the service scheduled for mid-year, he said.
"That ship was constructed with 30 percent less labor hours than (LCS) 1, and we took a lot of lessons learned from 1 and rolled them back into" the USS Fort Worth, he said. The shipyard "found a lot of different ways to do it a second time and do it much quicker, more efficiently, and still meet all the requirements."
The Detroit is the second of up to 10 littoral combat ships Marinette Marine is expected to build for the U.S. Navy in the coming years — subject to congressional funding. Austal USA is building another 10 ships of a different design, but the same concept, in Alabama.
Both Austal and Lockheed Martin have delivered first-of-class ships to the Navy, which has reported some teething problems with both designs. The Navy said those issues are being addressed on the ships in service and future designs and that it would like to purchase as many as 55 of the vessels.
The Barack Obama administration budget issued earlier this month includes funding to the tune of $1.8 billion for four more of the ships in Fiscal Year 2013. The budget is subject to congressional approval.
North and the Navy have said delivering ships on schedule and on budget are key to helping secure continued funding for the program.
"We've created a program that keeps the production lines at all the vendors and facilities we use running," North said. "That helps keeps costs under control."
Employment at Marinette Marine is at about 1,200 people — about 500 more than in June, Goddard said. The company plans to add about 300 more hourly, union workers in the next four months.
Marinette Marine has worked with seven local high schools on vocational education, including teaching students some of the welding skills required by the Navy, Goddard said.
It is also one of the partner companies working with Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in the formation of a recently opened North Coast Marine Manufacturing Training Center in Marinette.
"We've been able to get people locally," Goddard said about hiring thus far. "But we're doing some other things because the concern is at some point we're going to exhaust the workforce here."
— nphelps@greenbaypressgazette.com and follow him on Twitter @nathanphelpspg.