Archives

November 17, 2011. AMP calls for a national effort to support the creation of good jobs by helping U.S. manufacturers reduce costs, improve quality, and accelerate product development. In an effort to transform advanced manufacturing in the United States, AMP also aims to identify opportunities for investments in R&D, pre-competitive collaboration, and shared facilities and infrastructure. As digital manufacturers, this is a perfect opportunity for us to weigh in and let our leaders in government know about the importance of modeling and simulation to the industrial base and especially to our small and medium sized companies.

October 27, 2011. NCMS is forming a new project, IUID Marking for Legacy Parts – Navy Pilot, to automate much of the non-recurring engineering for the sub class of parts that have nameplates.

September 27, 2011. For researchers, chemists, engineers, industry CEOs, students, educators, entrepreneurs, policymakers – anyone interested in advancing innovation for a sustainable future in Michigan.

September 26, 2011. The September 2011 update from National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) delivering manufacturing innovation.

June 28, 2011. NCMS at a Glance- Manufacturing Innovation | National Center for Manufacturing Sciences

June 27, 2011. President Obama kicks off the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP), a national collaboration between the government, industries, and universities to invest in cutting-edge technologies, create new jobs and bring about a renaissance in American manufacturing.

Automotive manufacturers and their suppliers are pressing to innovate in order to increase vehicle fuel efficiency to meet federal CAFÉ guidelines by integrating lightweight materials into new vehicle designs. These lightweight materials pose unique challenges and opportunities that must be addressed. The solutions for some of these challenges may be found in other industries such as aerospace and defense or in new tools and processes.

The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences is stepping up to the plate to help revitalize America’s manufacturing sector. The 24-year-old organization has created a program aimed at putting high-performance digital computing capability into thousands of lower tier manufacturing companies.

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.

NCMS is seeking participants for a new forming NMRPP project, Catapult Alignment Position Measurement Automation. The current aircraft carrier catapult alignment method is marginally reliable due to multiple degrees of error and limited data.  Over the 100 meter length of the catapult trough, mechanics repeatedly align a fixture to reference lasers and manually conduct gap …

NCMS is seeking participants for a new forming NMRPP project, New Technology Metal Deposition Repair for Navy Ship/Submarine Components. Current methods of Metal Deposition Repair (MDR) for worn and corroded components are primarily limited to electroplating/conventional welding processes, which have significant limitations for component repair.  New MDRs are needed for valve bodies, valve balls, pump …

NCMS is seeking participants for a new forming NMRPP project, Environmentally Friendly Cutting Solutions. The current method employed for large-scale cutting and ship disposal (Oxy-Fuel) creates large quantities of visible emissions, metal fumes and debris.  Federal and State Clean Air Acts prohibit visible emissions greater than 20% opacity.  Attempts to control emissions to comply with …

NCMS announces the formation of a new collaboration- Navy Maintenance and Repair Partnership Program (NMRPP).  Launching in the Pacific Northwest, with Project Managers assigned to NCMS West, in Bremerton, WA., NMRPP supports Naval shipyard and other maintenance and repair operations essential to sustain the most critical ships and undersea weapon systems in the Navy and …

On 28 – 29 April, FRC East hosted a Technology Showcase sponsored by the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) through its Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities program (CTMA). The showcase brought leading technology companies into FRC East to see first hand the challenges our maintainers face in order to identify innovative commercial solutions.

NCMS is partnering with the Department of Energy (DOE) to identify and develop critical manufacturing technologies vital to the affordable manufacturing of alternative energy systems. The call for Concept Papers will be used to select projects to be funded by this program.

The first step includes developing a national innovation network; a knowledge infrastructure to leverage the power of high performance computing (HPC) and bring together the wealth of talent, ideas and facilities within our universities, national labs and industrial research centers.

NCMS is requesting help in the production of concepts for a new project opportunity related to web based access to high performance computing tools. The optimal scope is to create within a two to four week window, sufficient visual concepts using rapid development simulation processes and tools. The end product should enable visualization of key interactive feature sets prior to the development of any web application code.

The DoD is facing severe challenges in their tactical ground combat equipment to provide added ballistic protection and survivability to the warfighters, but the added weight increases rollover events, and decreases vehicle performance such as fuel economy, speed, and acceleration. In addition, vehicle suspension and engine wear are further taxed by the added weight.

NCMS is seeking participants for a new forming project, Trivalent Chrome Phase II. This project will complete the initial work of Phase I, where the team developed a new chrome plating process using a trivalent chrome bath to replace the highly-toxic hexavalent chrome bath. The trivalent chrome process must produce hard chrome components that perform equally or better to the older process while still meeting all military specs.

Current decontamination methods used by maintenance personnel result in exposure to dangerous chemicals and pose disposal problems.

This project will provide alternative green metal cutting methods for use during vessel disposal to reduce metal fume emissions in full compliance with Washington State and Puget Sound Clean Air Agency opacity requirements, Federal Clean Water Act, and to reduce costs during the cut-up phases of aircraft carrier disposals.

Rapid Manufacturing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), is a transformational manufacturing paradigm expected to supplant traditional machining and tooling processes for the fabrication of select products. This revolutionary technology builds net shape or near net shape parts layer by layer directly from CAD. Additive technologies allow part design freedoms not possible with traditional fabrication methods. Complex-multiple part configurations can be constructed in a single build, thus allowing reduction in the numbers of component parts needing assembly.

Can you calculate the carbon footprint of your operations? Do you know how to squeeze out waste using lean principles? NCMS is making its training programs in sustainability and lean product design available to members and defense facilities.

The objective of this CTMA effort is to provide the Army with automated test equipment which has the ability to replace the outdated manual test equipment presently used by government and industry. This capability will reduce cycle time for returned night vision devices and significantly reduce costs to the Department of Defense by decreasing destruction of good image intensifier tubes.

The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) is currently managing (on behalf of the U.S. Navy) a project designed to convert a legacy, paper-based maintenance manual to an electronic form that is compliant with the S1000D international standard for technical manuals. To better understand the scope and scale of the level of effort, NCMS seeks …

Automotive manufacturers and their suppliers are pressing to innovate in order to increase vehicle fuel efficiency to meet federal CAFÉ guidelines by integrating lightweight materials into new vehicle designs. These lightweight materials pose unique challenges and opportunities that must be addressed.

Phase I of the Electrical Wiring Integrity Systems Program (EWIS) demonstrated the potential that can be realized by effective wire testing and maintenance. The EWIS results have resulted in success at each of the participant sites. However, as the expeditionary demand on military aircraft increases and the life cycle of these aircraft are extended, the need to effectively implement wiring integrity programs to maintain the health of these aircraft also increases.