Marine Machinery Association Issues Invitation To Attend May 1, Meeting In D.C.

The Marine Machinery Association, a one-year-old trade association devoted to improving business conditions for manufacturers of the machinery used on Navy and commercial ships and to improving the quality of spare parts and repair services for the machinery in the fleet, has announced that its next meeting will be on Wednesday, May 1, 1985, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Shoreham Hotel, 2500 Calvert Street, N.W. in Washington, D.C.

Representatives of Marine Equipment manufacturers interested in attending this meeting should follow instructions given in the last paragraph of this report.

The theme for the meeting is "Increased Competition—Decreased Quality; Solving the Quality Problem in Navy Acquisition Planning." A partial roster of speakers for the meeting includes J.J. Genovese, Program Manager, Breakout Program, Naval Supply Systems Command PML-550; the Honorable Robert McClory, former Member of Congress; and Richard B.

McFarland, Executive Director, Ships Parts Control Center.

The Association held its first membership meeting in Washington on February 7, 1985, after being formed as a District of Columbia nonprofit corporation a year ago to improve conditions in the industry.

Attending the February meeting were a group of 40 leading executives of manufacturers of shipboard machinery. Elected to serve on the board of directors were D.M.

Choate of Turbodyne Division, Dresser Industries, Inc.; J.E. Flann i g a n of Terry Corporation; James P. Fromfield of Leslie Co.; Larry J. Holley of Warren Pumps Division, Houdaille Industries, Inc.; and J a c k P. Janetatos of Baker & McKenzie. Janetatos was elected to serve as president, and D.A. Marangiello of ORI, Inc. was appointed to serve as the executive director.

The Association has established headquarters at 1629 K Street in Washington and has worked actively over the past year at its first goal—improving the quality and reliability of spare parts and repair services for auxiliary machinery in the Navy's fleet.

Mr. Janetatos reported that as the result of the Association's position, the spare parts legislation passed by Congress last year contained a cautionary note in the committee report that it was the intent of Congress that "the emphasis on securing more competition not result in a degradation of product quality, reliability or maintainability." The representatives of the 17 corporate members of MMA were told, however, that the problem of low quality in spare parts and repair services continues, and considerable efforts must be made if any improvement is to be had. "Under the acquisition systems now in place," Mr. Janetatos said, "the fleet can have no confidence that the spare parts in the Navy stock system will work in their machines or that overhaul services by repair activities will result in machines that operate up to standard." Capt. A. Howard Allnut of the Naval Sea Systems Command emphasized the Navy's awareness of the problem. He reported that all eight naval shipyards had experienced high and growing rework costs in the overhaul of critical rotating machinery in the past two years. Captain Allnut said that NAVSEA, working with the Naval shipyards, was undertaking a program to improve quality and reliability in overhauls by buying spare parts kits for overhaul directly from original equipment manufacturers.

In a lively and frank exchange of views between Navy representatives and member company officials, obstacles faced by botb government and industry in this new program were addressed. Navy representatives were particularly concerned with statutory restrictions placed upon them by Congress in last year's well-publicized spare parts controversy. They believe they are required to seek competition even when they lack the technical data necessary to write specifications. Industry officials pointed to the degradation of fleet capability resulting from the purchase of parts without data adequate to describe the parts and verify their quality. They voiced particular concern over the security given to their technical data in the hands of the government.

The Navy responded that plans are being made to increase security on technical data and to impose quality restrictions on all suppliers.

Heightening industry's concern on data questions was a plan revealed by the Defense Logistics Agency to make public release of Identification Lists which contained data lifted from proprietary data submitted by industry. Many of the company executives expressed concern that the government would use DLA's tactic as a precedent to foster increased releases of proprietary data despite contractual and statutory prohibitions. In light of current planning for increased use of reverse engineering by NAVSEA, any release of data, no matter how small, was viewed as important.

The Association members agreed to step up their efforts by bringing the facts concerning the low quality of parts to the attention of Congress.

The Association also promised the Navy representatives their full support and cooperation in improving the quality and reliability of the Navy's parts inventory.

Founding members of the Marine Machinery Association are: Aurora Pump; Byron Jackson Pump; Cameron Pump; Elliott Company; Gimpel Corporation; Hardie-Tynes Manufacturing Co.; John Crane; Ingersoll- Rand Company; Ingersoll- Rand Compressor Division; Leslie Co.; Pacific Pump; Terry Corporation; Transamerica Delaval Inc.; Treadwell Corporation; Turbodyne; Vacco Industries; Viking Pump; Warren Pump; and Worthington Pump.

At the conclusion of the next meeting of the Association from 2 to 5 p.m. on May 1, at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., a cocktail hour is scheduled from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Those interested in attending the meeting or joining the Association should contact Jack Flannigan, Terry Corporation, Industrial Road, Niantic, Conn. 06357, phone: (203) 739-6271, or write directly to Marine Machinery Association, 1627 K Street, N.W., Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20006.