Innovative Manufacturing Processes

"The capability to produce a hardware item satisfying mission objectives is as essential as the ability to properly define and design it. For this reason, manufacturing analysis forms an integral part of the Systems Engineering process. Manufacturinganalysis supports the development of manufacturing product and process requirements and solutions necessary to produce system end items. Manufacturing analysis encompasses producibility analysis, trade-off studies and life cycle cost analyses. Theseanalyses help baseline the capabilities of existing manufacturing systems and aid in the evaluation of alternative designs. Due to current technological advancements Modeling and Simulation (M&S) has increasingly become a tool to help alleviate risk in adevelopment program. The goal of this Phase I effort is to baseline current M&S activities within an existing Department of Defense (DoD) program and prudently apply M&S techniques and resources to selectively satisfy manufacturing requirements andpropose the a fully integrated missile defense manufacturing simulation tool with the capabilities for secure geographically distributed collaboration among Government, prime contractors and suppliers. This tool will include a logistics analysis model, aproduction and factory model and a manufacturing and assembly model. Results of this Phase I effort will lay the groundwork to significantly improve the performance of the supply chain, optimize