The Navy is restructuring the alphabet soup of offices and authorities responsible for building its fleet of littoral combat ships, their vehicles and accessories, the service's top weapons buyer said Wednesday. Sean Stackley told an internal audience at Naval Sea Systems Command that the complexity of building two different ships and integrating all the sensors, weapons and unmanned vehicles called for a dedicated program executive officer to run the show. The new PEO for LCS will look like NavSea's other, older offices, including PEO Carriers or PEO Ships, which are involved with their respective systems from the time they're designed to the time they go to sea.
PEO LCS will become one of the top PEOs in the Navy, with far-reaching responsibilities and a significant budget. But it will also put whoever holds that job in a political hotseat, because it will make a single person responsible for programs and systems that before this had fallen into different boxes all throughout the org chart.
The restructuring won't require any job cuts, Stackley said. Here's how it'll break down, organizationally, according to information provided by a Navy official: "The PEO would include the current PMS 403, PMS 406, PMS 420, PMS 495, and PMS 501. Existing program offices include PMs and DPMs would move in total. Other program offices within PEO LMW will be merged into existing PEOs. A test and evaluation director will report directly to the PEO to integrate the delivery of these littoral capabilities. The seaframe core combat systems will continue to be integrated with PMS 501."
