At Portsmouth, Fisher completed Royal Sovereign in two years rather than three and reduced a barbette-gun change from two days to two hours. Those gains gave the Admiralty a benchmark with which to challenge slower naval and private yards. Fisher learned workers' names, made supervisors answerable at the worksite, and sometimes moved resistant officials away from Portsmouth. His personal oversight built a dockyard relationship that later helped HMS Dreadnought receive continuous effort and unusually rapid construction.
Chapter · 39:06-43:06
Portsmouth Dockyard: speed through hands-on management
As Portsmouth superintendent, Fisher accelerated construction and maintenance by making managers accountable at the worksite.