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November 2003 Welcome to The CTMA Connector, a monthly newsletter designed to provide news and ideas about the Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) program. The CTMA program is a joint Department of Defense/National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (DoD/NCMS) effort promoting collaborative technology development between industry and the DoD maintenance and repair facilities. This newsletter highlights ongoing projects, serves as a forum for promoting new project ideas, and provides other news of interest to the program. Our goal is to stimulate your participation and solicit your input. Feel free to submit items for the newsletter as well as any suggestions to make it more useful. More information about the program can be found at http://ctma.ncms.org/. To subscribe or unsubscribe to the CTMA Connector, send a message to listserv@listserv.ncms.org with "subscribe CTMANewsletter" or "unsubscribe CTMANewsletter" in the subject line. New Project Approved: Product Data Management for Six Sigma Quality DoD participants: Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Anniston Army Depot, Naval Air Depot Cherry Point Quality “escapes” where requirements are not properly communicated, account for almost half the non-conformances reported in manufacturing jet engines, whether components are manufactured in-house or outsourced. Product definition for aerospace components is extremely complex. A single engineering drawing can contain thousands of characteristic requirements and reference several separate specifications documents. Those specification documents can contain hundreds of additional characteristic requirements. In today’s digital world where the Joint Strike Fighter design is entirely digital, it seems almost incomprehensible that total product requirements – engineering characteristics plus manufacturing and the quality assessment processes are not always digitally associated. Process planning for manufacturing and quality assessment is driven from 2D drawings – not the solid model. As a result, requirements are not associatively linked through the product lifecycle. Communicating design and manufacturing requirements for product is largely a manual process, subject to human error. Communicating subsequent changes to the product design or manufacturing process only compounds the opportunity for Quality escapes. The Depot environment presents additional challenges. Weapons systems maintained frequently predate 3D CAD systems. As a result, Depots often need to produce parts where the only tech data available consists of 2D engineering drawings. In most of those cases, the Depot will create a 3D model, create and annotate a 2D drawing from the 3D model, check the new drawing against the old, and use the new drawing to drive manufacturing processes. The result is that in current practice, downstream manufacturing applications and processes are driven by three sources of truth: the original 2D engineering drawing, the new solid model, and the new 2D engineering drawing. Opportunities for human error are compounded. And for Depots, any error that delays replacement part availability will also delay returning a valuable resource to service. This project seeks to create associative linking of characteristics throughout the product lifecycle using technologies provided with EDS Unigraphics (UG) and Teamcenter Product Lifecycle Data Management (PLM) systems used throughout the Navy and at many Depots, including the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Anniston Army Depot, Naval Air Depot Cherry Point and Albany Marine Corp Depot. The project focuses on tools for design and manufacturing engineering and on the technical interface to external supply chain partners rather than on enterprise business applications or communications infrastructure. When complete, this project will make available to downstream applications a complete, up-to-date listing of all engineering requirements for a given part, associated with the defining solid model and 2D drawing set. The result will be accurate and unambiguous requirements communicated to everyone who needs them; from process planners to quality inspectors of both organic manufacturing and external suppliers. Such automation will ensure that appropriate resources are aware of and deal with changes to any of the requirements, thereby reducing quality “escapes” and lowering operating costs. The project is also developing a path for legacy part application so Depots will receive benefits for the legacy parts they now make. NCMS project manager is Tony Haynes, tonyh@ncms.org, 734-995-4930. Recently Completed Project: Rapid Prototyping Technology Advancement for Maintenance Activities (RPTA) The RPTA program was an ambitious and successful undertaking for both the industrial and Depot partners. During the decade of the 1990’s, rapid prototyping (RP) technology was developing rapidly and was initially regarded as suitable only for development activity, such as concept models. However, by the end of the decade, industrial users were going beyond just concept models into areas of rapid tooling and functional part experimentation. The RPTA program applied technology to newly identified Depot applications, using commercially available RP machines and technologies, and technical training and assistance to gain proficiency in using the machinery and various technologies. Cost avoidance through the use of RPTA technologies included:
Estimates of cost-avoidance by the participants exceeded $2.5 million for the program. Further information is available from the NCMS project manager, Connie Philips, conniep@ncms.org, 734-995-7051. Ongoing News: Mark your Calendar for the 2004 CTMA Working Symposium, 30 March through 1 April Location: Emory Conference Center Hotel, Atlanta, GA Theme: "A Practical Roadmap to Manufacturing and Repair" Host Depot: Anniston Army Depot Cosponsors:
New Project Ideas (click on topics to see descriptions)
We appreciate your feedback. Please contact Chuck Ryan with suggestions or input on other topics that would be of interest to you in this newsletter. The CTMA Program is sponsored by the Department of Defense; the content of this newsletter does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the government; no official endorsement should be inferred.
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