Agile Manufacturing Development of Castings

Abstract

The Agile Manufacturing Development of Castings Consortium has demonstrated how the application of functional and collaboration technologies can dramatically reduce the casting acquisition cycle and cost for both industrial and defense-related applications. The Consortium, consisting of members that represent every tier of the castings supply chain, include Atchison Casting Corporation; Clinkenbeard & Associates, Inc.; Denison Industries; GE Corporate Research and Development; K + P Agile, Inc.; and QuesTek Innovations LLC. The Consortium has developed internet-related software that facilitates secure collaboration and distributed project management independent of the physical location of the team members and without the need for software maintenance on the client machines. Working together in an agile manner. the Consortium has been able to reduce the casting acquisition cycle to less than a third of its typical length. as illustrated by cases of the Allison AAAV transfer case. the Sunstrand aircraft pump housing, and the VME subrack. Due to the close collaboration between the Consortium members. the Allison AAAV transfer case development required only 8 weeks versus a normal acquisition cycle of 30 weeks. the Sunstrand housing development required only 19 days versus a normal cycle of 12 weeks, and the VME subrack development required only 14 weeks versus a normal cycle of 40 weeks. The ability to perform with this level has opened business opportunities for the future. Through the experience of this program, the team members have witnessed sufficient benefit to continue to move forward beyond the end of the project. All Consortium members intend to use the software developed to enhance regular business processes. Members will continue to collaborate on a regular basis to provide customers with results similar to those demonstrated.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 08, 2000
Accession Number
ADA385344

Entities

Organizations

  • General Electric

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agile Manufacturing
  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Application Software
  • Assembly
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computer-Aided Design
  • Computers
  • Construction
  • Electronic Commerce
  • Fabrication
  • Manufacturing
  • Materials
  • Operating Systems
  • Organizational Structure
  • Web Browsers

Readers

  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • Mathematics or Statistics
  • Software Engineering.