December 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.

Register Now at

http://ctma.ncms.org/symposium2006/summary.htm

 

2006 CTMA Symposium

“History in the Making”

March 27 - 30, Williamsburg, VA

 

  • •Plenary Session with key military along with private industry to identify critical problems at manufacturing and repair facilities

  • •Series of workshops relating to manufacturing and repair
  • •CTMA project presentations
  • •Brainstorming session for new project ideas•
  • •New ideas for projects will be presented
  • •Meet new contacts and build relationships at receptions
  • •Table top displays for new technologies

We welcome the following new member companies into NCMS:

GFM GmbH (www.gfm.at)

GFM engineers, designs and manufactures world class CNC machine tools including radial forging, crankshaft milling, ultrasonic cutting, routing, plus CNC control systems, integrated manufacturing and inspection systems/cells, and inspection and repair preparation cells for aerospace maintenance depots.                                    

Millennium Cell Inc. (www.millenniumcell.com) 

Millennium Cell is a provider/developer of Hydrogen Battery Technology, particularly the hydrogen storage components for use in portable devices.

 

NCMS/CTMA Project Team Receives Defense Manufacturing Excellence Award

We are pleased to announce that the CTMA Rapid Prototyping Technology Advancement (RPTA) team has received the 2005 Defense Manufacturing Excellence Award.  The award was presented by the National Center for Advanced Technologies (NCAT) at the Defense Manufacturing Conference in Orlando, FL and recognizes outstanding contributions to manufacturing science and technology.

The RPTA collaborative project was formed to transfer rapid prototyping (RP) skills and increase the use of RP in the Department of Defense (DoD) maintenance depots.  As a result, the use of these technologies in depot maintenance activities has increased along with inter-depot cooperation to repair components using RP.  The project produced 30 case studies documenting over 600 days of man-hours and $2.2 million in cost savings.     

NCMS members Raytheon Systems Company, Eastman Kodak Company, Pratt & Whitney, General Pattern and Baxter Healthcare were the commercial participants on this project.  Other participants included the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA), Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC), Norfolk Naval Shipyard, TRIDENT Refit Facility, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Honeywell FM&T, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), and the Anniston Army Depot.

This is the fourth Defense Manufacturing Excellence Award given to an NCMS/CTMA project team.  The RPTA team presents project results annually at the NCMS CTMA Symposium. 
 

Participants needed on New Project Ideas:  Submit and view project ideas at http://ctmaideas.ncms.org.  Add your comments to new project ideas and indicate your interest in helping to define and participate in the project.

Call for CTMA Project Ideas

We are continuing to solicit project ideas for the CTMA program for possible funding in 2006.  A new, on-line process has been developed for submitting one-page descriptions of your project idea.  Go to http://ctmaideas.ncms.org.  We are looking for projects that have the highest value to the Department of Defense and to private industry.  Fill out each category, and leave blank if unknown.  The DoD is joining in the early evaluation of project ideas, which should quicken the process to approval.

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