The labor shortage hit shipyards hard. Can technology help Newport News bounce back? - Breaking...

Amid an economy still recovering from the peaks of the coronavirus pandemic, HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding officials say a technology transition, years in the making, is helping them fight back against a difficult labor market.
When HII puts the latest USS Enterprise (CVN-80) in the water later this decade, it will be the “first time in our history, and I believe in the Navy’s history, that the ship isn’t just designed in a 3D [computer-aided design] tool, but now we’re taking that 3D information and putting it on to a digital device and allowing our shipbuilders to build with that,” said Brian Fields, NNS vice president for the aircraft carriers Enterprise and the next aircraft carrier to be built, the Doris Miller (CVN-81).