January 2007

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.

Take advantage of two networking and knowledge exchange opportunities:

1. January 25 - 26: Weapon Systems Sustainment Conference, Midwest City, OK

2. March 26 - 29: The 8th Annual CTMA Symposium, San Antonio Texas

 

Weapon Systems Sustainment Conference

Location: Sheraton Midwest City
Reed Convention Center
5800 Will Rogers Road (I-40 and Sooner Road)
Midwest City, OK 73110

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 operation/process needs 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, planned for January 25th & 26th in Oklahoma City, OK in partnership with the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma Alliance for Manufacturing Excellence and the Oklahoma Aerospace Alliance, will focus on weapons system sustainment processes. 

More information and the agenda can be found at: http://www.ncms.org/weaponsSystem07/summary.htm

Registration for the Oklahoma City event is at:

https://www.ncms.org/SSL/WeaponsSys/reg07.htm

 

 

 

2007 CTMA SYMPOSIUM

"Solutions Round-up"

El Tropicano River Walk Hotel

San Antonio, Texas

Register now at https://www.ncms.org/SSL/Symposium2007/registration07.htm

The premier networking and knowledge sharing event focused upon the improving the readiness of DoD weapon systems through new technologies.The preliminary agenda can be found at: http://ctma.ncms.org/Symposium2007/agenda.htm

Air Travel Information:  Northwest Airlines is offering a discount for round-trip travel to the symposium. Use the assigned WorldFile/Ticket Designator as identified below to purchase your tickets online and our negotiated discount will be applied to available fares. To receive the discount, go to www.nwa.com. Under the Deals and News column and the Flights tab, click on “NWA Discount Travel E-Cert Redemption” located at the bottom. Enter your WorldPerks number or Continue to login as Guest. Complete the Flight Search section and navigate to the bottom where you will see “Do you have an E-Cert Fare, electronic voucher or meeting agreement”? Select type Meeting agreement (WorldFile #) and enter the Meeting WorldFile number #NMA42.

Hotel Information

El Tropicano Hotel
110 Lexington Ave.
San Antonio, TX 78205-1313
www.eltropicanohotel.com
1 800-288-3927
 reservations@eltropcianohotel.com

The hotel is offering a group rate for CTMA Symposium attendees. The group rate for attendees is $129.00 per night. The hotel will honor the government rate at $103 per night. When registering please identify yourself as being with the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, Inc. or reference the code “NCM”.

Sponsor Opportunities: NCMS is soliciting event sponsors for the upcoming CTMA Symposium. The following are the various levels for sponsoring an event at the symposium.

  • Breakfast - $500
  • Break - $500
  • Lunch - $1000
  • Reception (evening) - $2500

Event sponsors will be recognized on the CTMA Symposium handouts as well as a poster displayed at the event they are sponsoring.  In addition, your company name will appear in the CTMA Connector newsletter for four months. The CTMA Connector is distributed to over 4,200 recipients.  Contact Chuck Ryan, chuckr@ncms.org, for more information.

Want networking plus some fun?  When you register for the Symposium, sign up for the golf outing on Monday at the Fort Sam Houston Golf Course, 2901 Harry Wurzbach, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio TX (Phone: 210-222-9386)

Networking Golf Scramble

11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

 

Green Fees - $34

Golf Club Rentals - $10

 

The site for the Texas Open during the '50's and '60's, the La Loma Grande course carries a lot of heritage on her medium-speed greens. The Salado Del Rio course is the more scenic of the two, but the tree-lined fairways make for tight shots.

 

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We welcome the following new member companies into NCMS:

Goodrich, Fuel & Utility Systems, Simmonds Precision Products Inc. (www.fus.goodrich.com)

Goodrich Fuel & Utility Systems has provided affordable, reliable and technically creative solutions for commercial, military, regional and space applications.  In addition to many successful applications developed for commercial and military aircraft manufacturers, we also provide retrofit systems to operators.

REI Systems, Inc. (www.reisys.com)

REI Systems provides the federal government with business process management, electronic performance support and customer relationship management technologies.                                     

Profile Composites  (www.profilecomposites.com)

Profile Composites is committed to pursuing development and production of advanced lightweight composite products in a sustainable manufacturing system.

SCRA (www.scra.org) 

SCRA creates and leads collaborations that bring innovation to the marketplace.

American Foundry Society, Inc. (www.afsinc.org)

American Foundry Society is a trade association representing North American metalcasting industry. 

 

Completed Project:  Laser Engineered Net Shaping, Phase II

DoD Partners:  Naval Undersea Warfare Center Keyport, Anniston Army Depot, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center, Warner Robins Air Logistics Center                      

Component corrosion, fatigue, material degradation, wear, and obsolescence are conditions which impact weapon system readiness for warfighters and peacekeepers. Many of the Department of Defense (DoD) ships (300), aircraft and helicopters (15,000), strategic missiles (1,000), and ground combat and tactical vehicles (350,000) include high-value components which are challenging and expensive to replace via the DoD materiel supply chain, and difficult or impossible to repair by conventional technologies. Cannibalization is becoming more common as new replacement parts are difficult to locate for aging weapon systems.

To extend the life of aging aircraft, combat vehicles, artillery and small arms for DoD,
there is a need for more sophisticated component repair and overhaul techniques. This includes improving existing methods, as well as developing novel processes to enhance repair capabilities. Components such as turbine blades, vanes, impellers, stator assemblies, and rotating air seals are just a few types of the high-cost components requiring repair to extend weapon system life. Corrosion, fatigue, wear, stress and damage require component repair or replacement during overhaul processes.

As tanks, ships, submarines, and aircraft continue to operate beyond their intended life, part obsolescence management becomes an increasing challenge for asset sustainment, compromising military readiness. This project further developed the additive metal process, laser engineered net shaping, into a more robust system designed to repair a wider variety of parts vital to weapon systems readiness.

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

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.


Copyright 2007
National Center for Manufacturing Sciences