HII sees need to outsource unit and panel work for CVN 80

As Newport News Shipbuilding is building aircraft carrier Enterprise , the yard finds it needs to outsource unit and panel work. (Janes/Michael Fabey)

HII is looking to outsource some construction work for aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVN 80) at its Newport News Shipbuilding yard, HII officials confirmed on 4 May during a quarterly call with investment analysts.

“On CVN 80, we find ourselves from a time capacity and throughput [standpoint] needing to offload and/or outsource unit work and panel work right now,” said Tom Stiehle, HII executive vice-president and chief financial officer.

“We're working ourselves to that,” he said. “It's early in that project as we ramp that up. And we wanted to make sure that we increase the outsourcing risk protection, and we booked that conservatively. There's still many years to go on that ship, and it's just embarking on some additional out work on that.”

He added, “I would tell you that since the keel-laying last summer, that ship is coming tremendously along. It's in the dry dock right now. But again, we just thought it would be prudent to take a balanced approach as we embark on getting some additional workout cost [and] book the risk on the CVN 80 outsourcing project accordingly. I would not anticipate that to continue to bleed. If anything, I'd like to see us do better than what we have in the plan right now from a risk mitigation standpoint.”