Implementing the Mission-Funded Naval Shipyard: A Case Study on Change Management

This thesis seeks to determine how the naval shipyards could better implement mission funding after having worked extensively under a Working Capital Fund structure. Several principles exist in current management literature that can be applied to this change at the naval shipyards. Of these principles, six recurring guidelines for successful change management and an organizational open-systems framework are used to provide guidelines for shipyard change managers. The transition of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard provided a case study for applying this managerial theory. The six guidelines of change management were found to have applications for the case study, revealing the need for a clear vision statement, a leadership core, communication on multiple levels, attention to change inertia, and rewards for change behavior during a transformation. Furthermore, six key factors for success at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard provided additional guidelines for future transitioning shipyards, promoting command-level attention to mission funding issues, making a commitment to best practices, developing a specific timetable of milestones, seeking alternative sources of funding, performing functional area assessments, and developing and employing desk procedures.