Parker SCITech Group is a consulting organization focused on systems engineering, information assurance and program management for manufacturing and engineering organizations.

http://www.parkerscitech.com/

Laser Removal in Action (WMV)

This robotic laser stripping system is capable of removing paint from a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter blade in less than two hours – a time savings of 75% over hand-sanding. The laser system is so precise that it can remove only the top layers of paint, leaving the primer layer intact and not damaging the blade substrate.  When it was done by hand, technicians wore hazmat suits and worked in sweltering heat with toxic stripping chemicals.  Even a small mistake could result in irreparable damage to a $110,000 helicopter blade. This elegant laser system removes that risk. It’s going to save the Department of Defense about 80% in blade refurbishing costs, not to mention the huge time savings.

For more information about this project please contact Phil Callihan, NCMS Executive Director of Communications, at (734) 995-2046 or email philc@ncms.org.

SenGenuity's mission is to bring to market highly differentiated sensor solutions based on Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) and Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) technologies.

http://www.sengenuity.com/

One Network Enterprises provides planning, execution, and business intelligence applications built on a federated cloud computing platform. Committed to embrace, not replace, existing technology, One Network enables companies to achieve unprecedented visibility and collaboration that supports synchronized end-to-end business processes, improved insight, and better decision-making.

http://www.onenetwork.com/

The following CTMA projects were recently approved:

Corrosion Resistant Solid State Thin-Walled Component Joining for Maintenance and Repair Applications

This project is specifically targeting one of the more challenging classes of weld repair and fabrication – thin-walled components.  Thin-walled components often require the use of the highest skilled welding artisans within the depot infrastructure due to the intricate nature of avoiding burn through and component thermal warping.  To avoid this, thin-walled components (common in nearly every military platform) are often over-engineered or buttressed with thicker metal reinforcements.  These countermeasures add significant unwanted weight to the platform and also increase the corrosion prone weld filler regions that results from conventional welding.  This project seeks to develop and test a new solid state joining method that does not melt the materials to be joined thus increasing dimensional accuracy, corrosion resistance, and weld cycle time.

The new state-of-the-art technology to be explored in this project stems from the use of a novel manufacturing method called Deformation Resistance Welding (DRW), which can be utilized to join a wide variety of thin-walled components common to virtually every DoD platform.  Further, the DRW technology can be readily retrofitted into any depot facility for rapid utilization as the fundamental technology is based upon the well-known principles of resistance spot welding yet applied to large components of many shapes and sizes.

Improved Stealth and Lower Cost Operations for U.S. Naval Ships using High-Performance Cordage Deck Edge Netting

The U.S. Navy uses two styles of deck edge netting:  metallic cord netting that is durable but very heavy and difficult to repair shipboard as well as add to a ship’s radar cross section.  The other netting that is used is nylon netting that is lightweight and has no radar signature but need to replaced every 18 to 24 months due to UV degradation, shrinkage and abrasion.  This project will evaluate a new cordage net that is lightweight, has no radar signature and has a Navy tested life of five years. This netting is machine-made and promises reduced lifecycle cost. 

General Lasertronics designs and manufactures semi-custom laser-based coatings removal, surface treatment and cleaning systems for military, commercial aircraft and nuclear decontamination applications.

http://www.lasertronics.com/

Recently Andy Grove wrote a great article about the danger of marginalizing the domestic manufacturing sector- How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late: Andy Grove.  Grove, who co-founded Intel in 1968, has first hand experience on how difficult it is for companies to grow and create jobs.

The underlying problem isn’t simply lower Asian costs. It’s our own misplaced faith in the power of start-ups to create U.S. jobs. Americans love the idea of the guys in the garage inventing something that changes the world. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman recently encapsulated this view in a piece called “Start-Ups, Not Bailouts.” His argument: Let tired old companies that do commodity manufacturing die if they have to. If Washington really wants to create jobs, he wrote, it should back start-ups.

Andy is right and Thomas Friedman is wrong.  Do the math! Only about 2 in 10 start-ups succeed and most fail to employ more than five people in the first five years. A 20% business success rate only creates hundreds of jobs at best.  We would need tens of thousands of successful start-ups to make a substantial impact on our economy. 

My point isn’t that Intel was brilliant. The company was founded at a time when it was easier to scale domestically. For one thing, China wasn’t yet open for business. More importantly, the U.S. hadn’t yet forgotten that scaling was crucial to its economic future.  How could the U.S. have forgotten? I believe the answer has to do with a general undervaluing of manufacturing -- the idea that as long as “knowledge work” stays in the U.S., it doesn’t matter what happens to factory jobs.

Depending just on retaining "knowledge work" in the United States as a way of ensuring our economic future is both impossible and, frankly, foolish. If we lose the ability to scale manufacturing, we will soon lose the ability to design, and then innovate. You have to make things. Manufacturing is the foundation of an industrialized nation's economy, and we are currently reaping what we have sown by sending it overseas.

Talent, Investment and Infrastructure are the key elements in Innovation and also are required to scale for manufacturing.  Andy Grove understands this:

Each company, ruggedly individualistic, does its best to expand efficiently and improve its own profitability. However, our pursuit of our individual businesses, which often involves transferring manufacturing and a great deal of engineering out of the country, has hindered our ability to bring innovations to scale at home. Without scaling, we don’t just lose jobs -- we lose our hold on new technologies. Losing the ability to scale will ultimately damage our capacity to innovate. 

Many complain about the lack of highly educated workers in the U.S. – and we do need to be sure that pipeline is full, but highly skilled trades have a lot of innovation to contribute if they have a job. This is valuable stuff!  Grove continues:

The story comes to mind of an engineer who was to be executed by guillotine. The guillotine was stuck, and custom required that if the blade didn’t drop, the condemned man was set free. Before this could happen, the engineer pointed with excitement to a rusty pulley, and told the executioner to apply some oil there. Off went his head.

More than manufacturing is on the guillotine.  The basis of our economy is what's about to lose its head. We need to make sure that the blade doesn't fall on the American capacity for Innovation.

Rick Jarman is the President & CEO of the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. NCMS is the largest cross-industry collaborative manufacturing research consortium in the United States devoted exclusively to manufacturing technologies, process and practices. Formed in 1986, the NCMS mission is focused on the development of strategic initiatives and programs aimed at sustaining and enhancing the global competitiveness of North American manufacturing.

NCMS seeks assistance for ongoing project related to web-based access to high performance computing tools. The optimal scope requires part time support (1-2 days / month) to review and document the generic steps followed to validate a computer model.  These generic steps must then be embodied in an “application” that can be broadly used to validate computer models in simulations such that the information generated can confidently leveraged.  The respondent should have a strong understanding of computer modeling, simulation and engineering, design space exploration methods, and particular knowledge of the use of complexity as a design metric.  Understanding the complexity-based methods used by the Ontospace software tools as supplied by Ontonix LLC is required.

NCMS is looking for a partner that has the right technical capabilities, can work with experienced people in this field, and offer best overall process to accomplish the goals and objectives of this project.  All interested parties must reply by July 24^th.

For more information please contact:   

NCMS Executive Director of Design & Engineering Programs
Jon Riley, jonr@ncms.org (734) 995-0556