Volpe Center Highlights - May/June 2003
Organizational Excellence
Director's Notes |
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Mobility and Economic Growth
Human and Natural Environment |
Organizational Excellence |
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Papers and Presentations
Sustaining Coast Guard Cutters (USCG)
The U.S. Coast Guard operates five classes of cutters and four classes of aircraft in its Deepwater operations. Effective assets in their day, these platforms are technologically obsolete and require excessive maintenance. The Deepwater Project was established to modernize and replace this aging fleet as well as its supporting command-and-control and logistics systems. Because the current acquisition plan indicates that some legacy cutters are to remain in commission for up to 20 years, the Coast Guard's Engineering and Logistics Center asked the Volpe Center to help develop plans to keep these cutters operating at maximum efficiency through their remaining life.
The Coast Guard's 270' Medium Endurance Cutter fleet, commissioned between 1983 and 1991, is scheduled for decommissioning between 2018 and 2022. Volpe is helping the Coast Guard develop plans to keep aging cutters fit for service until they are decommissioned. |
April 1 through 3, 2003, a Volpe team conducted a workshop at the Engineering Logistics Center in Baltimore, Maryland with Coast Guard naval engineers to develop a sustainment plan for the 270' Medium Endurance Cutter (WMEC). Dr. Rachel Winkeller of the Planning and Policy Analysis Division and Mr. Bob Pray of the Technology Applications and Deployment Division led the group through a detailed analysis of the major issues facing the 270' WMEC and helped them develop a recommended set of projects to maintain the cutters' operational readiness through their projected life expectancy, as well as strategies for funding and sequencing the projects. Volpe plans to conduct similar workshops for the 210' Medium Endurance Cutter and the 378' High Endurance Cutter.
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