Have you ever thought to yourself, “I know there is a better way to do this?” Have you considered for a moment that great ideas that work for one process can possibly work for others in the industry?

On Feb. 24, these questions and more were answered at the 2010 Continuous Improvement Expo hosted by Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility at the Bremerton site.

The Expo allowed participants to share their innovations and process improvements, contributing to efficiencies in ship maintenance, repair and modernization. This first time partnership with our work force and representatives from other shipyards and organizations in the ship maintenance industry provided opportunities to check out improved practices for possible incorporation into their own organizations.

As Josh Rathacker, Nuclear Engineering and Planning Department said, “A lot of people in the shipyard don’t know that other people have done these things with their processes. Someone else may benefit in their shop by incorporating someone else’s improvement. It’s all about knowledge sharing.”

Michelle Holzman, visiting from Portsmouth Naval Shipyard said, “It’s a wonderful opportunity to see the continuous improvements at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & IMF.  It’s a great opportunity to learn, and maybe take some things back to Portsmouth.”

There were over 40 displays showcasing a variety of innovations from packaging and engineering processes, to alternate hull cutting, laser mapping and 3D scanning. The Sail Loft showed off their process improvements, a result of applying Lean principals over several years. 

“Not only does it help us be more efficient at work, but it saves us money,” said Bobby Manglona, Shop 64 (the Sail Loft).

Abigail McDowell and the corrosion control and repair value stream team showed off their many accomplishments. Cassie Pruitt of the team explained the material return bin program; how many times, a worker will end up with excess material after a job is completed.  Now, with bins in central locations, workers can drop off their excess material, which gets picked up by the value stream and put back on the shelves.  On one project alone, approximately $60,000 of material was recovered.

The naval shipyards hope to provide more opportunities to showcase and highlight work force creativity and ingenuity in the future.