U.S. Opens $2.4B Factory to Mass-Produce Nuclear Submarine Components

A new factory to mass produce components for Virginia-class attack submarines and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines was opened in Cherokee, Alabama on March 20 by manufacturing company, Hadrian.

The U.S. Navy’s $900 million investment combined with $1.5 billion in private capital put in by Hadrian for a total investment of more than $2.4 billion has gone into the factory.

Said Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan. “This factory is the first of three facilities designed to address the most critical bottlenecks in the maritime industrial base.”

Workers at the new factory will be able to mass produce components that are needed to build Virginia-class and Columbia-class submarines. A dedicated production plant focused on these components frees up submarine shipyards in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Virginia to focus more resources on submarine module production, increasing capacity in the submarine industrial base.

“We call this distributed shipbuilding, and it’s a key tenet of our plan to achieve required shipbuilding production rates,” said Mr. Jason Potter, Performing the Duties of Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development & Acquisition (ASN RDA). “These factories of the future might be several states away from the yards where the ships are ultimately built, but by taking on this work they reduce bottlenecks, having a profound effect on the speed of delivery.”

The Factory 4 project is estimated to take 18-24 months from initiation to full-rate production, including stand-up of automated production facilities, qualification of components, compliance qualifications like submarine safety program (SUBSAFE), and low-rate initial production. By the third year, the facilities will operate sustainably through delivery of submarine product lines.