Secure Supplier Collaboration

Background:

OEM/supplier collaboration is becoming increasingly common in commercial industry as more design and manufacturing responsibility is pushed into supply networks.  Virtual engineering where engineers in remote locations collaborate using web services for viewing, mark-up, and other services is now common.

The defense world, however, is hampered by the fact that most of the data needed for collaboration is either export controlled under International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR) or is classified.  Owners of regulated data are required by law to verify that any person to whom data is revealed is in fact authorized to view it.  Violations are serious matters and are dealt with accordingly.  Collaborations are difficult enough when the exchange is face-to-face, almost impossible when carried out over a virtual connection.  Solutions today universally involve point-to-point solutions where OEMs provision their suppliers.

Proposed Solution:

DoD has an active program called Net Centric Enterprise Systems (NCES) that targets constructing secure environments around secure equivalents to the public Internet.

A group of large aerospace industry companies (mostly connected to the JSF program) created a consortium named the Transatlantic Secure Collaboration Program (TSCP) to address the same issue.  TSCP has published several documents and specifications that define a Secure Collaboration Environment (SCE) and is now concentrating on development of open standard services for multi-factor identification, authentication, and authorization.

The project team plans to leverage the work done by TSCP, using that group’s Secure Collaboration Environment and concentrating on the terminal applications used by collaborators.  The core demonstration will leverage work performed by NCMS’ Product Lifecycle Management for Six Sigma Quality project, using the development of First Article Inspection Reports (FAIR) that are the basis for qualifying suppliers of a component.

Deliverables:

TBD

Benefits:

TBD

Anticipated Participants:

• Rolls-Royce – OEM user and project Champion
• BCT Technology – technology provider
• Cohesia Corporation – technology provider
• UGS PLM Solutions – technology provider
• Imaginestics – technology provider
• MRI – process mapping services
• Depot support TBD

NCMS Contact: Tony Haynes, (734) 995-4930, tonyh@ncms.org