Airbus A340
ACCESS: Confidential
- Joined
- 1 August 2020
- Messages
- 107
- Reaction score
- 172
RAND Study from 2006
The study linked above says that most cost growth is not driven by inefficiency, it is driven by increases in capability. They make all the recommendations that others have made but none of the recommendations were tried except making the ships modular. That failed with LCS. They suggested building single mission ships instead of multimission ships, another mistake. An interesting suggestion that does not usually get discussed much is to build ships to last 20 years instead of 30 and make no changes to the ships during production. That could also go for once they are in service, unless there is a critical issue. Building ships to last 20 years instead of 30 would require a 50% higher build rate and that would lower overhead costs per ship. The ships could be built cheaper because they do not have to last as long. The real cost is equipment, propulsion, etc. and that wears out or obsolesces so it might be cheaper to build the ships for 20 year lifespans instead of 30.
The study linked above says that most cost growth is not driven by inefficiency, it is driven by increases in capability. They make all the recommendations that others have made but none of the recommendations were tried except making the ships modular. That failed with LCS. They suggested building single mission ships instead of multimission ships, another mistake. An interesting suggestion that does not usually get discussed much is to build ships to last 20 years instead of 30 and make no changes to the ships during production. That could also go for once they are in service, unless there is a critical issue. Building ships to last 20 years instead of 30 would require a 50% higher build rate and that would lower overhead costs per ship. The ships could be built cheaper because they do not have to last as long. The real cost is equipment, propulsion, etc. and that wears out or obsolesces so it might be cheaper to build the ships for 20 year lifespans instead of 30.
