The Department of Defense Manufacturing
Technology program develops and
supports the adoption of advanced
manufacturing technologies . Some of
the goals include lowering the cost of
production and the cost of repair and
maintenance , increasing the capability
and the quality of the products that
the military purchases and also
increasing the production throughput of
those items . The manufacturing
technology program identifies and
solves problems across the Defense
industrial base By working with the
Joint Defense Manufacturing technology
panel and its technology based sub
panels to identify joint technology
pursuit areas . We all work together to
ensure that we're meeting requirements
for the military services themselves
all the way to strategic partnering
with industry and academia through a
manufacturing innovation institutes
which work on scale up commercially
relevant advanced manufacturing
technologies .
Our program is focused on the
efficiency and affordability of
technologies and we enhance those
things through enhancing the
manufacturing processes for that . And
the end goal is to support weapons
systems to enhance warfighter
capabilities . We are at the Watervliet
arsenal are engineering facility as
part of a . F . C . Def . Com armament
center and our mission is to provide
research design and development of
large caliber cannon . The project that
we have is called electrochemical
machining for armament manufacturing
for future cannon designs and looking
at alternative materials We needed to
have a different approaching process or
rifling process to be able to rifle
large caliber cannons approaching is a
conventional manufacturing process that
uses a successive set of approaches
that shear off very small amounts of
material approach sets are very
expensive . So with electrochemical
machining it's a non contact process so
your tooling is much much cheaper . We
can get faster processing rates and get
an improved quality with this process .
This project started off as an S . And
T . Development effort . As the
technology matured , it was
transitioned to a man tech program with
the support of the Man Tech office .
This technology will reach a
manufacturing readiness level to allow
it to be transitioned into production
manufacturing processes . This was
specifically under the Man Tech program
for the M 24 which is on the palatine
system . But the technology is also
very pervasive . So we could use this
on 105 millimeter , we can use this on
776 which is the M 77 towed artillery
system , long range artillery . We can
use it for that as well . The
investment of the Army Man Tech office
in electrochemical machining allows us
to advance the technology that
currently exists for rifling large
caliber cannon . It will also offer us
flexibility and agility moving forward
into our newer designs so that we may
provide superior weapons systems . I
considered a success because we started
out as a very small effort and then we
built this full scale facility and then
demonstrated that we can rifle large
caliber cannons with it . We've been
doing this for the Man Tech program
since fiscal year 19 . So we just ended
our four year program and we're now
going into our transition phase where
we're taking that from A . M . R . L .
Seven technology and pushing that out
to the shop floor . It's very vital to
the mission because whatever the US war
fighter has to use within combat
situations it has to be manufactured .
And if we can't manufacture it , if we
can't manufacture enough of it then it
reduces our ability to have overmatch
against the adversary .
The mission of the Navy mantle program
is to develop new and improved
manufacturing processes with the goal
of reducing the acquisition and
lifecycle costs of key Navy platforms .
David Mann Tech works in conjunction
with the Centers of Excellence and the
shipyards to generate ideas that would
have the greatest impact cost savings
or capability acceleration for the Navy
and for the warfighter . Today you're
at ingalls shipbuilding . We build
surface combatants for the U . S . Navy
as well as the Coast Guard and any
commercial opportunities that we have
as well . The shape plate robot project
is taking a process that it took over
40 years for a craftsman to create his
art in order to shape plates . The
existing process involves using a flame
based porch to eat and then pull the
metal . We've taken that science put it
into a robot that use programming to
take his art and repeat that process to
shape that plate What the robot is
doing . It's taking flat pieces of
steel and forming them into specific
shapes that go into various components
that will then be installed on the ship .
And the goal is to shorten the process
of fabricating these plates from
somewhere on the order of 50 to 60
hours to hopefully around four hours .
And that's a tremendous cost and time
savings for the Navy . We've had over
40 for projects that are implemented or
in the process of implementing the
total savings over $27 million dollars
per hole . And we've done all kinds of
projects with them , from new ,
improved welding processes to digital
threat technologies and other
technologies that really reduce the
cost of ship fabrication and accelerate
the delivery of those assets . This
project supports the Navy and the
Warfighter , generating cost savings
for the Navy and allowing those
research dollars to be used for new
capabilities and bringing those the
Warfighter more quickly . They provide
expertise and cutting edge technology
that as shipbuilders we would not
usually be accustomed to or even
familiar with . So that partnership
really provides us benefit to grow ,
learn and continue getting better and
reducing costs for our customers .
The Air Force Man Tech program is
really focused on driving affordability
into our weapons systems manufacturer
ability into our weapons systems were
at compass Technology Group , they're
running our project called the Advanced
rate home diagnostic system . ARDS for
short . What we have found is with the
man double tap test that the depot
typically uses . We don't discover
problems with the rhythms not being
properly repaired or missing areas that
need to be repaired until we get out to
test in the field after the depot and
then we have to do rework and usually
leads to 80 hours plus of re work that
needs to be done , ratings are very
important to a plane's ability to
locate targets to locate the ground
terrain to make sure that it sees
weather ahead of it . So we need to
make sure that those freedoms are at
their peak performing capability . And
this system helps ensure that we're
doing that . This system will allow us
to test the performance midstream or
even at the beginning to give us a
baseline to know how to best make those
repairs . We take millimeter wave radio
frequency measurements and by using
this measurement we can look at the
transmission and reflectivity of
different objects and materials . So we
used those to look at the paint
thickness or the layer thickness of the
raid um and evaluate its health and
performance . This is about the third
year of the project . It started off as
a handheld unit that we were using to
measure Radom transmissibility . We
transitioned that to a robot and now
what we're doing is using that data to
go do further testing and proof of
concept on Radames . The man take
programs important to innovation
because they pull technologies that are
in the development stages , they get
them ready for prime time to allow us
to then push that into production So
they help us bridge that gap of
technology readiness to get us to a
spot where we're ready to transition
Sure that our war fighters have the
capability they need we need to invest
the government dollars in building that
industrial base . We need to ensure
that the suppliers exist that we have
domestic suppliers that we have access
to suppliers so that we can provide the
capabilities that the war fighters need .
I'm the research and development
director in Mahon Tech is the largest
of the three components of our R . And
D . Program . It involves basically
sustainment of key supply chains . It's
all about the defense industrial base
and really keeping it ready for D . L .
A . Sustainment . We're at Redstone
Test center located on Redstone arsenal
Alabama and we do testing for army
hardware . So this is a project that
we've been working with the army and as
part of our additive manufacturing
portfolio for D . L . A . It's really
about getting added manufactured parts
into the aviation supply chain . The
name of the project that we're
highlighting is the additive
manufacturing you ate 60 fuel elbow
project and because of supply
shortages that had to do with
manufacturing quality escapes the
program office and D . L . A . And the
armies F . Com . Aviation missile
center Man tech got together to
design build and test an additive lee
manufactured fuel elbow . The goal of
the project was to do a 10 hour test
flight on a U . H . 60 helicopter here
at our airfield better than
manufacturing is the ability to take a
cad model and computer aided design
model and put it into layers into a
machine so the machine deposits layers
of materials . This is actually a fuel
elbow . What this does is this end
connects to the fuel hose and then this
end connects to the engine . So this
actually supplies fuel to the turbine
engines . So the fuel elbow had a
manufacturing quality issue had a thin
wall on one side of the fuel elbow that
was causing small fuel leaks . The
importance of this project is
demonstrating that we can print these
parts and qualify these parts to a
certain airworthiness qualification and
fly these parts in a limited test
flight which is really just exercising
that whole process so that in the
future as technology improves and
advances we can move forward and
continue to add parts to the aircraft
as needed to help sustainment . We
definitely consider the project a
success . The fact that it was a joint
project was very beneficial . The fact
that we were able to pull resources ,
different organizations and we had a
stated goal and we met it at the end ,
it is important that the L . A .
Establishes these partnerships not only
with the military but also with the
academia in industry because when you
bring different perspectives to a
problem , you find better solutions to
its success . Can be defined in a
number of ways , a lot of ways it's
making a better part getting it
qualified so it can be part of the new
part that you'd order for that weapon
systems . Other times it's improving a
business process for D . L . A . Like
moving us from A to D . Technical data
world to a three D . Connected digital
enterprise . So success can take
different approaches . But for us it's
really all about support to the war
Fighter .
Man tech is really working on securing
the supply chains in the US ,
increasing the resilience of the supply
chains so that we can respond to not
only daily products that you and I use
all the time . It upgrades to those
products but also respond to the
warfighter needs and support national
security but also through economic
security and creating better jobs for
the U . S . The D . O . D . Man Tech
program is very important to the
defense industrial base and the
warfighter because we are investing in
next generation technologies , ensuring
manufacturing processes are advanced
and improving so that our war fighter
has access to asymmetric advantage on
the battlefield .