Night Vision Goggle Clip "Make vs. Buy" Study

Abstract

Letterkenny Army Depot "LEAD", located in Chambersburg PA, received an order to manufacture 12,000 night vision goggle "NVG" plates. These plates are used to mount the NVG to the Soldier's helmet. However, the quantities needed had increased over four fold from 12,000 to 52,000 "7,000 NVG plates per month" near the time of production. Based on these quantities, delivery dates, and current workload, LEAD requested the assistance of the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining "NCDMM" to help optimize the NVG plate manufacturing process. The optimized tooling and tool path resulted in a 30% reduction in cycle time compared to the original program. Implementing this solution enables LEAD to meet its increased production schedule of 52,000 plates. This improvement also reduces the estimated cost $2.18 per NVG plate.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 18, 2006
Accession Number
ADA481717

Entities

People

  • Lee Mccullough

Organizations

  • National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Amortization
  • Assembly
  • Automatic
  • Bulk Materials
  • Costs
  • Engineering
  • Fabrication
  • Lead Time
  • Machines
  • Machining
  • Manufacturing
  • Manufacturing Engineering
  • Materials
  • Night Vision
  • Production
  • Production Engineering
  • Standards

Readers

  • Circadian Sleep-Wake Regulation and Chronobiology
  • Logistics and Supply Chain Management.
  • Manufacturing Engineering.