{"id":21512,"date":"2020-11-16T22:44:11","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T19:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/gao-study-finds-significant-risks-in-coast-guards-offshore-patrol-cutter-program\/21512\/"},"modified":"2020-11-16T22:44:11","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T19:44:11","slug":"gao-study-finds-significant-risks-in-coast-guards-offshore-patrol-cutter-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/gao-study-finds-significant-risks-in-coast-guards-offshore-patrol-cutter-program\/21512\/","title":{"rendered":"GAO Study Finds Significant Risks in Coast Guard\u2019s Offshore Patrol Cutter Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p>Hurricane Michael, a category 5 storm, devastated the Panama City, Florida shipyard of Eastern Shipbuilding Group in October 2018 where construction of the Coast Guard\u2019s Offshore Patrol Cutters was about to begin. The damage prompted the Department of Homeland Security to grant up to $659 million in extraordinary contractual relief to the shipbuilder to help it recover.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>In total, the Coast Guard has committed to spend over $12 billion to acquire a fleet of 25 OPCs to replace its aging fleet Medium Endurance Cutters.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>In 2016, the Coast Guard awarded ESG with the contract to design and construct the first nine Offshore Patrol Cutters marking largest-ever vessel procurement contract ever awarded in the history of the Coast Guard. However, due to the widespread damage caused Hurricane Michael, the Coast Guard later divided program two stages and revised its cost and schedule goals. Under the revised plan, ESG would build only up to four OPCs in the first stage, while the acquisition of the remaining 21 OPCs will be awarded under one or more new contracts starting in second stage in fiscal year 2022.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/products\/gao-21-9#summary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">According to the GAO<\/a>, the Coast Guard\u2019s determination to deliver the OPCs in a timely manner, even after the hurricane, has driven the program through key acquisition decisions despite certain risks.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Coast Guard accepted significant risk with the design, schedule, and cost\u2014both before and after the hurricane\u2014to get the cutters built quickly. But the cutter\u2019s design is unstable, its schedule optimistic, and its cost estimate incomplete\u2014making it likely that building it will take longer and cost more,\u201d the GAO said in its findings.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>GAO has made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/products\/gao-21-9#summary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eight recommendations<\/a> to the Coast Guard and DHS, including ensuring that the program stabilizes its design before proceeding with construction of the next OPC, updates its schedule to address deficiencies and incorporate risks, and updates its cost estimate to improve its credibility.<\/p>\n<p>gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hurricane Michael, a category 5 storm, devastated the Panama City, Florida shipyard of Eastern Shipbuilding Group in October 2018 where construction of the Coast Guard\u2019s Offshore Patrol Cutters was about to begin. The damage prompted the Department of Homeland Security to grant up to $659 million in extraordinary contractual relief to the shipbuilder to help &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1579,2559,1875,2426,4447,1131,1466,1096,1249,3633,1874],"class_list":["post-21512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-coast","tag-cutter","tag-finds","tag-gao","tag-guards","tag-offshore","tag-patrol","tag-program","tag-risks","tag-significant","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/21513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}