Enterprise and Emerging Manufacturing
Abstract
Enterprise and Emerging Manufacturing is a series of efforts addressing advanced manufacturing technologies and enterprise business practices for defense applications. Key focus areas include direct digital (or additive) manufacturing, advanced manufacturing enterprise, machining, robotics, assembly, and joining. These manufacturing technologies and enterprise business practices will accelerate delivery of technical capabilities to impact current warfighting operations, and manufacturing technologies to reduce the cost, acquisition time and risk of our major defense acquisition programs. With our adversaries forced to innovate rapidly to survive, it's become increasingly important for the U.S. military to improve its own agility and flexibility. The focus is to find a solution to overcome a burdensome acquisition cycle requiring a great amount of cost, time, security, and storage space. Through the use of secure satellite data links or a local parts database, warfighters can access CAD designs for replacement parts, allowing them to repair equipment without the need to establish supply chains or wait for shipments. It allows operators to modify a part's design based on its performance in the field. Emerging manufacturing technologies undergoing development include: Large-scale, challenge for advanced, interoperable machine tool applications, and methods for exchange of 3D official technical data throughout the supply chain and between government and contractors. National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII): Collaborative efforts with NAMII enable the production of finished parts directly from digital data such as 3D Computer-aided design (CAD) drawings. It provides almost limitless freedom to designers, allowing the use of very complicated geometries. It is as economical to produce single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. Using additive manufacturing would allow for rapid replacement of parts in the field and enable deployed units to remain mission-ready. Through the use of secure satellite data links or a local parts database, warfighters near deployment locations could access CAD designs for replacement parts, allowing them to repair equipment without the need to establish supply chains or wait for shipments. It would allow operators to modify a part's design based on its performance in the field. There is a strong need to fabricate timely and affordable aerospace structures in a production environment for rapid fielding of materials and systems. An example of a system that could benefit is an air flow control actuator within an inlet duct. This program involves design, fabrication, testing and performance analysis of various parts using additive manufacturing. Complex designs, such as conformal lattice structures, may only be successfully manufactured using methods such as additive manufacturing. MTConnect Challenge: The MTConnect Challenge focuses on developing manufacturing solutions (tools) using newly developed MTConnect interoperable protocol, for use on machining platform development. MTConnect is an open communication standard that provides the capability to pass data from machine tools to higher level systems for further processing using the XML based standard. Framework for Assessing Cost and Technology (FACT): Producibility analysis tools will be matured so that component performance, manufacturing processing techniques and cost can be simultaneously considered to achieve an optimum design solution. Current producibility analysis tools do not reuse and connect existing design, manufacturing and cost models. Sustainment and Maintenance will be impacted by maturing advanced sustainability analyses operating within FACT to reduce sustainment costs associated with spare parts acquisition and weapon system maintenance. The technology will enable correct selection of a manufacturing process to minimize cost given the estimated spare part lot sizes. Block Upgrades or Recapitalization using FACT will be critical for performing analyses associated with integrating new requirements into an existing platform to highlight the manufacturing and lifecycle costs associated with the necessary changes to the weapon system in order to meet new operational requirements.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2014
- Source ID
- 48fc876f6494c763c4b5a9d5b6d7588b