A Novel Real-Time Methodology for Assessing the Monitoring of U.S. Navy High-Value Assets to Enhance Availability and Minimize Recertification Expenses
Open Access Depositedwhere the U.S.S. John McCain collided with an oil tanker and the U.S.S. Fitzgerald collided with a Philippine-flagged merchant cargo ship, resulting in hundreds of missiles being out of service. This problem affects all of the United States military service branches and government contractors such as Raytheon, Northrup-Grumman and Lockheed-Martin. This issue occurs on USN ships underway if they experience a collision with another vessel. It can also happen during transportation, or loading/unloading of assets and terrorist events. Insufficient missile supply may compromise a ship’s safety and result in significant casualties among sailors in an event of military conflicts.The U.S. Navy requires a way to efficiently track and evaluate high-value assets following major shock or vibration incidents. To address this issue, the author researched and evaluated the current market for wireless protocols and sensor technologies suitable for high-value assets and compliant with the rigorous requirements for missile deployment utilizing qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Next, a comprehensive weighted trade-study was performed, followed by reliability, obsolescence analysis, and service life extension opportunities. The identified solution underwent small-scale integration and testing across various transportation events to validate the chosen system solution. In the future, these results will be utilized to address other Navy concerns, such as missile warranty and extension of service life.
High-value assets, including missiles, are not currently monitored for shock or vibration events aboard United States Naval (USN) vessels. This lack of oversight can result in asset shortages lasting up to 18 months and necessitate the return of these items to the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) for recertification, which may incur costs of up to $1.0 million per missile, encompassing transportation, testing, and recertification expenses. The original two use cases both occurred in 2017
- All rights reserved
Notice to Authors
If you are the author of this work and you have any questions about the information on this page, please use the Contact form to get in touch with us.