> Rather than outsourcing design to third parties, ship design should be brought in-house, and NAVSEA should expand its staff of Naval Architects from around 300 to closer to 1200.
Abundance makes this point about many government projects' inefficiency.
In my (admittedly not ship-building) experience, big problems happen when design and manufacturing are done by different organizations. The designer has to make guesses about the tools and processes at the manufacturer, and the manufacturer has little flexibility to make small changes to the design to improve manufacturability.
Of course there are ways to bridge this gap, including close collaboration and frequent back-and-forth between groups, but then when the spec has been fine-tuned for one manufacturer it can end up nearly impossible for third parties to competitively bid for a contract.
I think the navy can probably do design as well as anybody, but then they'd probably have to run the shipyards too.
The alt case isn't the shipyard doing the design; it is gov't working with consultants on specs, working with designers who work with engineers who work with manufacturers who work with subcontractors