Intelligent Manufacturing € November € 1996 € Vol. 2 € No. 11

Air Force Backs Virtual Manufacturing

Airplane manufacturer Lockheed Martin Co. (Bethesda, Md.) and the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratory Manufacturing Technology Directorate (MANTECH) (Dayton, Ohio) are working together on a virtual manufacturing (VM) project to apply modeling and simulation technology during the design process to prove out and select optimal new concepts. This new approach to product and process design and technology is needed to separate low cost from high volume.

The first step of the VM initiative is the Simulation Assessment Validation Environment (SAVE) program. The objective of SAVE is to implement, demonstrate and validate integrated modeling and simulation tools and methods used to assess the impact of product/process decisions on the affordability of advanced strike warfare technology.

Rendell Hughes, manager of the Joint Strike Fighter SAVE program at Lockheed Martin, and James Poindexter, program manager for the Manufacturing and Engineering Systems Division of MANTECH, delivered a keynote presentation emphasizing the importance of simulation in achieving a state of virtual manufacturing for a project as complex as an attack aircraft at the Sim.TECH Fall '96 conference, held last month in Philadelphia, Pa.

MANTECH's Manufacturing and Engineering Systems Division manages programs for effective integration and development of technical and business systems used to produce affordable Air Force weapon systems.

The SAVE program consists of two phases and is focused on initial implementations of VM strategically applied to specific real fighter and/or attack aircraft design and production affordability problems. Phase I demonstrates a complete manufacturing scenario and communicates the functional capabilities of the developed tools. It validates the core VM capabilities, identifies performance and business metrics against real production problems, and points to areas for continued refinement/enhancement to be accomplished during Phase II. The second phase targets ongoing weapon system mechanical component or subassembly applications, and culminates with a full demonstration of the developed VM capabilities applied to the targeted weapon system application.

According to Poindexter, "The transitioning of VM technology to industry needs to be accelerated." To that end, other SAVE team members -- Cognition, Decision Dynamics, Deneb, IBM, Pritsker and SAIC -- will participate in developing and demonstrating integrated modeling and simulation tools and methods.

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