September 2005

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.

Recently Approved Projects:

Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) Sense and Respond Support System (SRSS)

There are currently three different approaches to logistics and supply chain management being utilized in the commercial world and throughout the DoD.  The three approaches are:  mass-based logistics, just-in-time logistics, and portions of Sense and Respond logistics.  The Marine Corps is seeking to rapidly advance from a mass-based logistics approach, to a Sense and Respond Logistics approach. 

This project will create a LAV SRSS at the Marine Corps School of Infantry - West.  This will become the Marine Corps’ Center of Excellence for Sense and Respond Maintenance and Logistics.  The SRSS will be available for use by each of the four Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalions, and the USMC Maintenance Depots at Albany, Georgia and Barstow, California. 

 The SRSS will be composed of a range of components that will monitor asset health and logistical information at the platform level; assist the maintainer to diagnose and make repairs; report asset health to the enterprise; and incorporate the data into decision support tools assisting commanders, maintainers and logisticians to choose the best courses of action.  The SRSS will gather data through a system of embedded sensors and data bus in the vehicle.  The information will be transmitted either wirelessly or via wired connection to the portable maintenance device (PMD), which will incorporate an interactive electronic technical manual (IETM), with limited diagnostic capability, as well as other applications to assist the maintainer in troubleshooting and fault isolation.  An on-call telematics remote maintainer call center will operate to provide expert level maintainer guidance available to the entire LAV community.  Maintenance and logistics data will be collected on the 14 LAVs at SOI and periodically uploaded and reported to the PM–LAV integrated digital environment (IDE) for the purpose of conducting trend analysis of parts degradation and conducting demand forecasting.   

This project will allow the PM–LAV to demonstrate and assess the feasibility of a technology insertion prior to commencing the acquisition process.  In addition, the PM and the user community will be able to assess the doctrinal and manpower implications of the technology. 

The NCMS contact is Mike Gnam, mikeg@ncms.org, 734-995-4971.

Implementation of New Commercial Hard Chrome Plating Tooling at Naval Air Systems Command Depot North Island

The objective of this project is to introduce new electrodeposited hard chrome plating equipment into Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) Depot North Island maintenance activities, including advanced racks, fixtures, and anodes.  This new tooling has many benefits over conventional hard chromium plating equipment, including faster set-up and plating rates, improved deposit uniformity, reduced grinding time and reduced human exposure to carcinogenic compounds.

DoD uses hard chromium plating extensively during maintenance of aircraft, ships, and weapon systems.  There are many vital industrial and engineering applications for electrodeposited hard chromium.  The characteristics which make hard chrome plating a practical and necessary application in its many uses are hardness, low coefficient of friction (i.e. improves sliding properties), chemical inertness, resistance to wear and corrosion, and an inherent micro crack pattern for the retention of lubricants. 

The chromium electroplating process works by placing parts into a chromic acid solution at an elevated temperature (about 135 - 140^oF) and electrically connecting the parts to the negative terminal of a rectifier.  Lead alloy anodes are also placed in the tank and are electrically connected to the positive terminal.  Chromium is then deposited onto the parts.  Usually, chromium is only plated onto certain portions of steel parts such as bearing surfaces, where metal on metal contact occurs during use.  Depositing a layer of chromium on such a surface prevents wearing of the steel parts in these areas.  To prevent unwanted deposition of chromium on other areas of the parts, these surfaces are masked with molten plastic, wax, metal or plastic tapes, or by other means.  The masking and subsequent unmasking tasks are labor-intensive aspects of the chrome plating process.  Personnel assigned to masking must be well trained and experienced; typically the best platers in the shop are used for this task.

For refurbishment of used parts, chrome is typically plated to an average thickness of 5 to 30 thousandths of an inch (mils) (i.e. 10 to 60 mils on the diameter).  Approximately 25% or more of this deposit is needed because chromium plates in a non-uniform manner using current DoD methods.  Thus, in order to achieve a minimum thickness over the entire surface, the parts must be over-plated.  The plated deposit is then machined to a uniform, specified dimension.   

Current DoD hard chrome plating procedures include use of elaborate racking and fixturing.  Much of this work is done above the plating tank where employees are subject to chromic acid fumes.  For example, most DoD shops use C-clamps to attach racks to tank busing.  In addition to the imposed health hazard, the various metal-to-metal connections cause an electrical current drop resulting in lower plating rates.

New commercial tooling designs have recently been developed that dramatically improve the hard chrome plating process.  The new tooling includes racks, fixtures and anodes that are specifically designed for individual parts.  The new tooling is particularly beneficial in cases where the same parts are plated on a regular basis.  However, even in cases where small lots of parts exist, the production and health benefits will outweigh the costs. Improvements in the current hard chrome plating process would have an immediate and significant impact on production times and costs.

The NCMS contact is Paul Chalmer, paulc@ncms.org, 734-995-4911.

Participants needed on New Project Ideas (click on topics to see descriptions), if you are interested, contact the project manager listed.

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.

Copyright 2005
National Center for Manufacturing Sciences