Shipbuilding Partners and Suppliers (SPARS)

Re-engineer and replace manual, labor intensive, paper-based, error-prone and long cycle interactions amongst shipyards, suppliers and the U.S. Navy with electronic Internet-based shipyard-to-supplier business processes managed by an electronic workflow manager.

NSRP’s Shipbuilding Partners and Suppliers (SPARS) initiative is reducing the costs and cycle time associated with shipyard-vendor interactions throughout the design, construction and repair process. SPARS is a top-down e-Business solution built to address the consensus, prioritized cost drivers of major U.S. shipyards in a method that accommodates legacy systems by using state-of-the-art internet technologies. The shipyard-supplier business processes are re-engineered using Lean principles.

Over the past six years, a series of projects have been funded to incrementally maximize the benefits associated with implementing SPARS processes. At the end of 2006, as shown above, eight processes were being used in production at five shipyards with documented cost reductions of approximately $2M per process/per implementing yard.

SPARS processes that have been developed include:

• Vendor Information Request – allows suppliers to request information or address non-conformances.
• Vendor Payment Authorization – documents receipt of goods and/or services that do not trigger a receiving document.
• Deficiency Log /Deficiency Report – ability to track and prioritize deficiency reports, with real-time reporting and statistical data to measure performance.
• Vendor Procedure Approval Request – submits supplier procedures (e.g. welding) for shipyard approval.
• Vendor Furnished Information – provides ability to assemble pre-project bid team and required bid information.
• Vendor Quote – Web-enable selected legacy procurement processes.
• Vendor Bid – develop projects and generate supplier responses for engineered parts and components.
• Vendor Expedite – allows shipyards to post delivery expectations for suppliers online and for suppliers to confirm delivery dates and/or identify potential issues.
• Vendor Requisition – automates the shipyard requisition processes that inputs to the procurement operations between shipyards and suppliers.
• Vendor Technical Data Exchange – ad-hoc data exchange capability that will meet security requirements.
• Radio Frequency Identification – a prototype process for suppliers and shipyards that meets the Department of Defense Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) mandate.
• Tier Two Shipyard Prototypes – modifications, enhancements and repackaging of SPARS processes to meet specific second tier shipyard needs.

Request Final Report from NSRP – Limited Distribution to authorized government agencies and NSRP ASE Program representatives

Project Team:

• • National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols (NIIP) IBM
  • General Dynamics Electric Boat
  • General Dynamics Bath Iron Works
  • Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding
  • Northrop Grumman Ship Systems
  • Todd Pacific Shipyards
  • Bollinger Shipyards
  • Bender Shipbuilding & Repair
  • BT Halter Marine
  • IBM E-Design Group
  • IBM Software Group
  • Altarum Center for Electronic Commerce
  • Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
  • Marine Machinery Association and Shipbuilding Suppliers

  *(Participant list represents a series of projects. Some listed may not have participated in all projects.)*

March 2000 - December 2007

NSRP ASE Investment: $11M

Industry Investment: $8.6M