The CTMA Connector

September 2006

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 message body.

Save the Date

2007 CTMA SYMPOSIUM

Solutions Round-up

El Tropicano River Walk Hotel

San Antonio, Texas

March 26, - 29, 2007

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Announcing the first in a series of DoD Maintenance Technology Needs Workshops - "Production Management Systems"

As a supplement to the popular CTMA Annual Symposium, NCMS is holding the first of what is intended to be a series of workshops designed to bring industry together with DoD maintenance principals to discuss DoD-specific technology needs. The workshops will focused upon particular applications requirements at a DoD maintenance facility, with the people responsible for these applications presenting a list of their technology needs. A depot tour will be included to further highlight the issues. In addition, any ongoing projects will be reviewed that impact the targeted applications. The twin objectives of the workshops are to (1) identify new CTMA project ideas and to (2) identify business opportunities outside the CTMA program for industrial participants.

The inaugural workshop will focus on production management systems. Production management improves manufacturing operations throughout the product lifecycle by:

providing real-time manufacturing/repair information for process improvement,
reducing the manufacturing cycle time and increasing weapon system readiness and product throughput,
significantly reducing errors and implementation time between the planning and manufacturing processes, and
monitoring lifecycle product performance and identifying systemic repair needs.

The workshop is tentatively planned for early November in Oklahoma City, OK in partnership with the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB. Look for further announcements as plans solidify. Interested participants should send an e-mail to Chuck Ryan at chuckr@ncms.org. The workshop fee will be $150 for NCMS members and DoD, and $250 for non-members.

For more information or to offer suggestions please contact Chuck Ryan – (734) 995-4905, chuckr@ncms.org or Tony Haynes – (734) 995-4930, tonyh@ncms.org.

We welcome the following new member companies into the NCMS program:

America’s Phenix (www.amphx.com)

America’s Phenix provides development, engineering and support services to business partners in the application of protective coatings for gas turbine engines.

E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (www.fuelcells.dupont.com)

DuPont Fuel Cells is a technology and market development organization enabling the advancement of fuel cell technology and products with leading players in the industry.

SFC Smart Fuel Cell AG (www.efoy.com)

SFC Smart Fuel Cell is the world’s leading supplier of energy solutions for mobile applications based on fuel-cell technology. Their U.S. manufacturing is done through their strategic partnership with DuPont Company.

Recently Approved Project:

Rapid Manufacturing Process & Material Insertion for DOD Part Applications, Phase II

Rapid Prototyping (RP) technology has evolved from primarily producing conceptual models in the 1980s, when it was introduced, to producing functional parts in the 2000s. Rapid Manufacturing & Repair (RM&R) Phase I focused on piloting RP technologies for Advanced Digital Fabrication (ADF) and Repair (R) applications. Progressing directly from a solid model on the computer screen to a net-shape functional part produced by digital-based manufacturing technologies utilizing engineered materials is now a reality. RM&R Phase I piloted and demonstrated the feasibility of ADF-RP technologies for net-shape part fabrication as niche manufacturing methodologies for low quantities (1-1,000’s) and for achieving part-design features that cannot be fabricated by any other technique. RM&R Phase I also demonstrated the feasibility of fabricating or casting select parts directly or indirectly using RP technologies.

ADF-RP offers the DoD maintenance community a unique capability for the replacement and repair of selected legacy and obsolescent parts within significantly shortened time frames. Procurements of hard-to-replace legacy parts can take six months or more, if a quotation can be gotten at all for the low quantities needed. The use of ADF-RP technologies to repair or replace selected parts can shorten procurement and delivery time from months to weeks. With the technology and knowledge transfer afforded through this project, the organic depot community is becoming better equipped and more knowledgeable about the uses of these technologies. With ADF-RP capabilities resident within the organic depot community, readiness through part and repair availability for selected parts could conceivably be reduced from weeks to days.

This CTMA project has driven new capabilities into the DoD for rapid manufacturing of parts, resulting both in increased readiness and cost savings. The project is now continuing into the next realm, a two-part thrust to:

Identify hard-to-replace legacy parts from DLA, Navy, Army, Marine, and Air Force supply and maintenance-depot communities, for fabrication directly or indirectly using RP technologies and materials and to demonstrate, test and document part, material and process qualification.
Cooperatively with OSD, DLA, Navy, Army, Marine and Air Force entities, define and institute a process for obtaining expeditious process and material specification change approvals for hard-to-replace parts.

NCMS contact is Connie Philips, conniep@ncms.org, 386-445-2785.

You are invited to an NCMS workshop on Product Development for the Lean Enterprise, November 9, 2006 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Toyota Production System is the most acclaimed and copied manufacturing system in the world. Over the past twenty years, its lean principles and techniques have been the inspiration for the overhaul of the world’s production capabilities. Although less publicized and harder to comprehend, the Toyota Product Development System is also unique and arguably more important for the ongoing success of the company. Increasingly, organizations are applying the same lean principles of production into product development in a continuing attempt to mimic Toyota’s success. While this will achieve incremental gains, it will not capture the essence of Toyota’s excellence, nor achieve the breakthrough improvements which are possible. This can only be done by understanding why they do what they do and integrating that thinking into the company culture.

Workshop Highlights

The principles and cornerstones of the Toyota Development System.
How the Toyota Development System is up to 4x more productive than most western companies.
How to achieve 50% faster product development cycle times (and the associated lower development costs).
How to minimize or eliminate design loop-backs.
How to achieve smooth product launches (and to hit the target deadlines)
How to create, capture, share, and reuse robust technical knowledge across design projects.
Why merely copying the Toyota processes seldom achieves the desired results and what to do about that.
How to implement these principles in your company or facility.
How other organizations are making this change.

This interactive workshop will be presented by Michael Kennedy, author of the best selling book, Product Development for the Lean Enterprise, and is a popular speaker at many national and international engineering and manufacturing conferences.

Cost of this event is $495 per person (NCMS Members/DoD $445). For additional information about the program, contact Mike Gnam at 734-995-4971, mikeg@ncms.org or visit http://lpdi.ncms.org

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.

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.