HII Establishes Partnerships to Expand Throughput, Industrial Base

HII is partnering with shipyards and fabricators in multiple states to grow its throughput and meet the increased demand for ships by the U.S. Navy. With its customer’s support, HII is bringing the work to more companies and more jobs in more states, expanding capacity of the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base and improving schedule adherence for all ships built by HII.

HII’s structural assembly network, consisting of companies that contribute to outsourced modular assembly of ships, is at 23 companies and growing.

For Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, the most recent example of pushing work beyond the shipyard is HII’s acquisition of a manufacturing facility in Goose Creek, South Carolina. At what is now known as the company’s Charleston Operations, HII is committed to producing completed submarine modules and structural aircraft carrier units, with room for future expansion. Additionally, HII has identified a number of key manufacturing partners in Virginia and beyond that are building certain structural assemblies for future submarines and aircraft carriers. This evolution to a more distributed shipbuilding model will expand production of the next generation of Navy’s fleet.

For Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, select outfitted structural units for Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are being constructed, inspected and accepted at partner locations and later delivered to Ingalls for final integration. These partners were selected beyond the company’s traditional labor market, at locations with existing skilled labor and facility capacity.

Early phases of this destroyer work are already underway with six different shipbuilding partners in multiple states. Additional work packages to include more U.S. shipbuilding partners are under evaluation. The current scope of this work will support construction of DDGs 135, 137 and 139.

In addition to securing outsourcing partnerships domestically, HII is exploring methods to expand defense and commercial opportunities internationally and has created partnerships, with companies like Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) and Babcock International Group, to enhance technological innovations and maximize production efficiency.