UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) ended 2021 with two awards for projects hosted by ARL's Institute for Manufacturing and Sustainment Technologies (iMAST).
At the end of 2021 members of the ARL iMAST team attended the annual Defense Manufacturing Conference (DMC) in Denver. The Department of Defense (DOD) annually recognizes manufacturing technology (ManTech) projects in six categories that represent the most innovative and effective projects funded by the various services' ManTech programs. During DMC last December, iMAST won and was presented the 2021 DOD Manufacturing Achievement Award for cost savings. The ManTech project titled “S2797 Production Bill of Materials Quality Assurance using Artificial Intelligence” focused on improving the DDG 51 Production Bill of Material (PBOM), an immensely complex, hierarchical data structure used to represent the shipyard’s manufacturing processes. The PBOM is vulnerable to human errors that result in increased ship costs and delivery delays. Specifically, PBOM errors cause incorrect routing of material, excessive handling to re-inventory material, and re-planning production work to the appropriate time and place. Conventional and manual efforts to conduct PBOM data quality assurance were inadequately effective given the complexity of this data and the rapid rate of production. The iMAST ARL project team, led by Christopher Ligetti and Melinda West, was able to significantly and iteratively improve PBOM quality through the development of an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) application that automatically detects patterns and anomalies within the PBOM data. The demonstrated and successful application of (AI/ML) technology in this shipbuilding industry significantly reduced error and improved business efficiency by reducing product disruption costs due to PBOM errors without introducing large costs associated with large-scale manual checking. This resulted in the reduction of the number of PBOM errors and associated bill change requests by 50% for six new ships. Savings anticipated as a result of this project over a five-year period are approximately $4.2 million.
The iMAST program also won a second 2021 DOD Manufacturing Achievement Award for sustainment. ManTech project S2649 Alternative Coating Ball Valve, led by Doug Wolfe, focused on improving first time acceptance of air system valve balls routinely rejected for premature failure. The current green Teflon coating is peeling and wearing after a low number of cycles (production testing). The overall project objective was to identify the root cause failure mechanism, test, evaluate and implement potential alternative coating candidate materials/material system, seat/ball combinations, coating manufacturing processes and/or surface modification processes to improve the performance and life-cycle of air-system ball valves. After determination of the root cause for the failures, uncoated, Teflon coated, superfinished and diamond-like carbon coated valve balls were tested as potential solutions. The project team recommended that the superfinished valve balls replace the current Teflon-coated ball valves in order to save substantial costs during acquisition. Expected benefits include a 50% reduction in acquisition costs by eliminating rejections, reduced installation delays, improved boat readiness and total life of boat savings that could approach $69 million.
The iMAST program was officially established at Penn State by the Office of Naval Research in 1995. Prior to that, ARL supported the ONR ManTech program informally as a part of its University Affiliated Research Center mission. The iMAST program is a matrix center with full-time leadership and administration, but its projects are executed by ARL research teams assigned and funded to support the ManTech mission on the basis of their technology expertise and experience. The iMAST program supports the ONR ManTech goals for acquisition cost reduction, life cycle cost reduction and capability acceleration, as well as occasional basic research projects focused on potential manufacturing or repair innovations. The iMAST center of excellence resides within ARL's Materials and Manufacturing Office and is directed by Timothy Bair.