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Totally Integrated Munitions Enterprise ManTech Project
This description of the TIME program was excerpted and edited from the Scope and Background sections of a ManTech document entitled “Totally Integrated Munitions Enterprise ManTech Project,” version f (ManTech 1999). Further details may be obtained from the U.S. Army Armament Research Development and Engineering Center, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey.
SCOPE
The purpose of this task is to expand the work and experience created under the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) efforts with the Department of Energy (DoE), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in the development of an Open Modular Architecture Controller (DoE OMAC) into an integral part of the Totally Integrated Munitions Enterprise (TIME) ManTech project. The project initially concentrates on establishing a manufacturing enterprise architecture, developing and deploying critical technologies, and validating through testbed and second beta site demonstrations. The DoE OMAC developed by LLNL currently operates in a Windows 95 environment for milling machine operations only. In order to be adaptable to a wide variety of other pieces of Department of Defense (DoD) manufacturing equipment, a Windows NT foundation is necessary. The services outlined constitute the next phase in a program to address and reshape the manufacturing future of both the DoD munitions production base and the DoE weapons manufacturing base. The program will be completed in two concurrent phases and a third ongoing phase:
Phase I will primarily complete the OMAC, first for operation with a milling machine running under Windows 95; this will be referred to as the OMAC version 1. This version will be ported to Windows NT with real-time control extensions; which will be referred to as the version 2. Much of the work on the OMAC version 2 will actually be able to start before completion of the version 1. This is possible because as modules are completed in the OMAC version 1 they can be ported to the version 2.
Phase II will demonstrate the DoE OMAC with integrated compliant modules for discrete logic system for version 1 and standard operator interface made operational on version 2. Concurrent with and based on this OMAC work, Phase II will complete the overall TIME architecture methodology and document for enterprisewide utilization and integration of the OMAC version 2 in an integrated intranet communications manufacturing environment, addressing product realization strategy from design to production for mechanical parts. Phase II will demonstrate this technology and integration of the tools into a collaborative environment and will provide a network with configuration management tools, systems configuration, and management. Testbed facilities for network infrastructure, maintenance, and operation; metal parts machines for machining, installing, and testing of the critical technologies toolset; TIME beta sites; validating demonstrations; support for OMAC integrations; and collaborative work cells will be established and maintained. Demonstrations of TIME will include a validation at government defense and commercial manufacturing facilities, spin-off demonstration of munitions part production to other sites, a plan for demonstrating the TIME concept for munitions electronics, and initiation of the design fora miniaturized global positioning system.
Phase III will extend the work done on the DoE OMAC by adding additional modules and training. The product realization work will be extended to electronics, and training will be developed. A project with TACOM-ARDEC contractors will demonstrate the value of TIME.
BACKGROUND
For at least the last 20 years, manufacturing managers have wanted to take advantage of the promise of computer technology to reduce costs and time-to-market and to produce higher-quality products. The production hardware can be put into place to provide a flexible manufacturing system that can make a variety of products without purchasing new machines. Current technology does not provide economical methods to rapidly and accurately generate and deliver these data to the production machines. The DoD design, testing, and engineering facilities must be able to transfer the manufacturing parameters and procedures in real time from one agile production node to another. In addition, there is no system in existence today that will allow nongovernment-owned facilities to rapidly convert to DoD production in times of national emergency. Because truly open architecture software is not commercially available and because of the learning curve associated with understanding the idiosyncrasies of the applications and developing this magnitude of programming, it is more beneficial and economical for the government to use the knowledge and experience gained by LLNL from their recently completed $20 million CRADA.
The TIME OMAC will enable seamless integration of on-machine product and process data with other enterprise systems and users, while ensuring the ability to deploy technology to the plant floor both cost-effectively and incrementally. From the existing OMAC, an improved OMAC with real-time extensions will be developed and deployed starting with extending the existing
Windows 95 version and then porting to the Windows NT environment with enhanced features and real-time extensions. The controller will support closed-loop processing in an agile environment. This advanced controller will include sophisticated functionality not generally available today, including in-process monitoring and the abilities to sense and correct for process wear, to calculate a process variable based on multisensor data and calibration tables, and to detect tool breakage and take appropriate action under varying conditions. The first implementation will realize a three-axis milling machine capability.
This work will leverage the work accomplished under the DoE Technologies Enabling Agile Manufacturing (TEAM) program and ongoing work being performed under the auspices of the Open Modular Architecture Controller Users Group (OMACUG), thus ensuring general applicability to the needs of both government and commercial organizations. (Note: the DoE OMAC will be modular, but to avoid confusion with OMACUG standards compliance and also express this modularity, the term DoE OMAC will be used henceforth to refer to the DoE controller.) With ongoing TEAM and OMACUG participation, LLNL is to continue as the developer of the DoE OMAC to ensure both that it is functional with the enterprise and that no proprietary hardware or software not capable of conforming to the OMACUG’s application programming interface standards creeps into the system. LLNL is the vital key to successful system integration and is responsible for all design activity, networking, and applications to additional machines. LLNL system integration will ensure transfer of the TIME and DoE OMAC technical knowledge developed by LLNL in Phase I to be successfully incorporated into all efforts throughout Phase II.