- Navy Secretary John Phelan says he is now overseeing design changes to the new Marine Corps landing ship.
- Phelan said he's reserving Fridays at 5 p.m. for change orders on the vessel.
- It's an unusual approach aimed at avoiding further failures.
The US Navy secretary says he is going to be personally stepping into the shipbuilding process, setting up Friday office hours for any design changes to a new landing ship project.
The oversight is an attempt to avoid repeating mistakes that led to program-crippling cost overruns and delays for the Navy's Constellation-class frigate, which was recently canceled with only two vessels under construction.
John Phelan, the sea service secretary, announced his plan last week at a Reagan National Defense Forum event when asked how the Navy plans to avoid missteps that led to the end of the Constellation program as the service builds the new LSM Landing Ship.
"We have settled on a design, it's a well known ship. The requirements are going to be put in and done before we start building the first one," Phelan said, adding that "when we start building the first one, any change order will have to be put through me," the secretary added, and "I've reserved Friday at 5 p.m. for my change order meeting schedule."
The Navy announced the selection of Dutch-designed vessel, the LST 100 landing ship, as the pick for the new medium landing ship program last week.
"By leveraging a mature, non-developmental design and strategic engineering," Naval Sea Systems Command said, "we are shortening acquisition timelines and ensuring our forces have the littoral mobility they need when they need it."
Marine Corps Commandant Eric Smith said that the Dutch shipbuilder Damen's LST 100, which displaces about 4,000 tons and can carry cargo and helicopters, is "an excellent choice" for the Marines.
"The Medium Landing Ships will enable our Marines to be more agile and flexible in austere environments where there are no ports, providing the joint force the needed operational mobility within the adversary's weapons engagement zone," he added.
Like the Constellation, which was based on Italian navy frigates, the LSM comes with a preconceived design. But the Navy decided to build the first Constellation vessel before the design was set, leading to cost and delivery problems. Now, the service is only building two of them; it originally awarded Wisconsin-based Fincantieri Marinette Marine $22 billion for 20.
Phelan posted about the plan for the new landing ship on social media, writing that "any change order comes through me."
He said "we are going to take our warfighters' requirements, translate them into stable, producible designs, and stick with them once they're set," adding that "if anyone wants to tinker with them, I've reserved Fridays at 5pm in my office for change order decisions — no drift, no delay."
The secretary's oversight plan puts him more directly in control of the LSM's design.
The Navy secretary's role is broad and policy-driven, centered on budgets, procurement, and shipbuilding programs. The specifics of fleet strategy and ship configuration typically fall to the chief of naval operations and NAVSEA, though the secretary still influences the fleet through major acquisition and funding decisions.
Phelan, who comes from a background in business, has previously stressed the need for more oversight of shipbuilding projects. Now he's taking that on himself.
"Secretary Phelan's decision to personally engage in the change order process is a necessary first step," Thomas Modly, a former Navy secretary during the first Trump administration, told Business Insider. "That being said, that decision is not an institutional change, just a personal one."
"The Navy itself needs to demonstrate that it can adopt its thinking to accept the concept of minimally altered foreign ship designs, and the programs need long-tenured program managers who believe in it," he said. "That's a harder problem."
Phelan's plan needs to establish successful oversight into the Navy's future as well. "Any fixes in this regard must outlive Secretary Phelan's tenure, or we will be looking at the same issues again in the future," Modly added. "Also, I hope the secretary is prepared to say 'no' a lot more than he says 'yes.'"
Under the second Trump administration, senior leadership, like Phelan, has made tackling key long-standing shipbuilding problems a priority, focusing on clearer designs and requirements as well as staying on budget and on schedule. Many of these issues stretch back decades and have been compounded by a shrinking workforce, stagnant wages, and aging shipyards that rely on outdated technology and practices.
When Phelan recently announced the cancellation of the Frigate on X, he said the vessel no longer offered strategic value to the fleet.
Although the acquisition of this vessel was important to the service's vision of a 355-ship fleet, the secretary said ending the program would help meet "the need to grow the fleet faster to meet tomorrow's threats" as the service prioritizes other classes of ships for faster shipbuilding timelines.
Other lines of effort for the Navy include uncrewed autonomous vessels, and there are reports of a "Golden Fleet" plan that seemingly concerns the development of hypersonic missile carriers. Where such projects fit into fleet design planning remains to be seen.
Phelan, like other service secretaries, has been keen on doing business with new partners alongside traditional defense companies.
"The Navy's going to be a better customer," the secretary said at the recent security forum, "But it's going to become a smarter customer," he added. "I think we are going to try to become a better partner with industry and new players as well."
