X-55A Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft

Transcription

1 I. Program Overview Organization Name/Program Name: Program Leader Name/ Position/Contact information , Phone Customer: Organization/Name/Position/ Contact information , Phone Program Category Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Corp. Advanced Development Programs X-55A (Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft) Mike Swanson (Ph I &II) Kevin L. Kelly (Ph III) Program Manager Kevin.l.kelly@lmco.com AFRL-RB Richard Holzwarth Richard.Holzwarth@WPAFB.AF.MIL System level R&D/SDD program or project Program Background: What is this program all about? (No more than one page). Describe: The overarching need for this program History of the program The product that is created by this program Scope of work original & updated Expected deliverables Current status of the program The Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft (ACCA), which flew for the first time on June 2, 2009, is a major step forward in addressing today s airframe development challenges. The ACCA program was originally conceived in 2006 as a challenge to industry by the Air Force to develop a new moldline cargo aircraft capable of carrying standard 463L cargo pallets using innovative composite materials in 17 months at a cost of $50M. The ACCA/X- 55A team rose to the challenge by offering to develop an all composite fuselage and vertical tail while leveraging the flight station, wing assembly, horizontal tail, and subsystems from a Dornier regional jet. This new fuselage was widened over 2 feet and an aft-loading cargo door integrated to meet the requirements set forth by the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL). The design approach to this new fuselage resulted in a 90% reduction in the number of parts and fasteners required as compared to conventional manufacturing methods. This reduction in parts and fasteners translates into a reduction in production fabrication and assembly hours of more than 70% based on historical trends. In terms of performance benefits, the composite technologies used on X-55A do not have the corrosion and fatigue issues that plague the existing and aging aircraft inventory. This will have a dramatic impact on reducing future maintenance costs of aircraft leveraging X-55A technologies. Weight reductions on the order of 20-30% 2011 AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 1

2 achievable through extensive use of composite primary structure translates directly into lower operational costs through fuel savings which continues to consume an increasing portion of the DOD s O&M costs. I. VALUE CREATION = 20 POINTS Value: What is the value, competitive positioning, advantage, and return created by this program to your: Customers National interests, war fighter Company Strength, bottom line, and shareholders Scientific/technical value (particularly for R&D programs) The unique challenge of designing and producing the large scale, out of autoclave (OoA), Large integrated assemblies and radically reduced parts count demonstrated a lower cost, rapidly produced, lighter weight aircraft technique which the Air Force Customer is now able to use as a stepping stone towards long term fleet cost savings in the future. The value to Lockheed Martin is the development of 4 unique technologies to a high TRL level to benefit future programs. The development of those technologies brought about new methods, materials and technical data for use on future development programs. Excellence and Uniqueness: What makes this program unique? Why should this program be awarded the Program Excellence Award? III. ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES/BEST PRACTICES: (HOW DO YOU DO THINGS) = 30 POINTS Strategic: Opportunity Management - Describe how your program has identified its operational and business opportunity, and manages this opportunity throughout the program s life cycle. The aerospace industry is constantly being challenged to increase service life, reduce weight, decrease manufacturing spans, and lower cost of new airframes in an increasingly competitive world economy. As new aircraft development opportunities decline, existing airframe service life is pushed well beyond original requirements, which leads to costly service life extension program to address fatigue and corrosion issues AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 2

3 Furthermore, budgetary constraints and evolving military needs necessitate dramatic cost and schedule reductions as compared to conventional military development efforts which rely heavily on conventional manufacturing methods which have not changed significantly in over 70 years. Strategic: Strategic Supply Chain Integration and Cost Effectiveness Management: - Describe how your program is integrating its supply chain to assure visibility and adapting long-term cost effectiveness up and down the supply chain. The X-55A, which flew for the first time on June 2, 2009, is a major step forward in addressing today s airframe development challenges. As a one-off demonstrator, X-55A s supply chain was limited to resources within the Prototyping Center. Future usage of the technologies in production would aggressively challenge this issue. Strategic: Operational Integration and Systems Engineering Describe the challenges faced by your program in terms of integrating the system into its operational environment and its impact on systems engineering planning and management. Operational: Planning, Monitoring, and Controlling - Describe your planning and resource allocation processes. How do you monitor and review your program s progress and make corrections to keep the program on track? As a one-off demonstrator, X-55A s supply chain was limited to resources within the Prototyping Center. Future usage of the technologies in production would aggressively challenge this issue. The extensive use of detailed program management plan, program master detail schedule, detailed manufacturing schedule and earned value management allow the visibility necessary to track progress and make the necessary resource and sequential decisions to keep the program on track or correct unknowns as they arise. Operational: Supply Chain and Logistics Management -- What As a one-off demonstrator, X-55A s supply chain was limited to resources within the Prototyping Center. Future usage of the technologies in production would 2011 AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 3

4 processes, tools and relationship-building methods have you used to develop, refine and improve supply chain and stakeholder integration? Please indicate also methods used to analyze/fact-find regarding supplier proposals. This is one of the most imperative needs of our industry please provide specific details and data that assisted you in gauging the effectiveness. aggressively challenge this issue. Operational: System Integration, Testing & Reviews - Describe the activities and processes used to succeed in your system integration, and testing. How did you conduct system design and technical reviews? Operational: Risk / Opportunity Management Describe the processes used to identify both risks and opportunity and to assure potential for both is addressed effectively Please indicate any forward-leaning processes to support. Team Leadership: Team Culture and Motivation Describe how you created your team spirit and culture, and accomplished entire team integration and individual team member motivation. Team Leadership: Lessons Learned and Knowledge Management Describe how you collect lessons learned and best We eliminated traditional milestone reviews in favor of a continuous review process to be able to respond to issues in real-time as they arose, vice deferring decision-making actions to specific events. This approach was critical to avoiding administratively-induced program delays. Webbased data archives, program documentation and workflow software enabled subject-matter experts to review and communicate key information whenever the opportunity arose. Having the flexibility to access information on their own terms allowed the team members to be more responsive to time-critical tasks and balance workloads from competing tasks. Risks, on the aircraft build/flight test side, were tracked in detail in a Risk Management database that captured the mitigation as well. Opportunities for development were tracked in that database as well. On the Program side, risks and opportunities were identified and addressed through a very thorough Program Management Plan that included a risk register as well as future opportunity assessment. All were continuously discussed and worked with the Customer. The X-55A program did not use a traditional, tiered program office, but invented a small, agile program office to compliment the technical pace of the program. Traditional milestone-based reviews were eliminated in favor of more frequent, informal meetings to respond more rapidly to issues as they arose. Lessons learned and best practices are continuously being gathered and recorded by the Engineering and Fabrication team and recorded in a series of quarterly reports that the Program retains for reporting and future opportunities. The expertise and knowledge developed or identified as 2011 AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 4

5 practices, and how they are shared with your team and company to improve performance. Also how are you capturing expertise and knowledge to assure availability over the life of the program? Team Leadership: Leadership Development How do you develop team s skills and build future leaders Best (& Next) Practices: Identify your program s specific Best Practices that you believe are unique, and could be shared with others and become industry s Next Practices. the Program grows are noted and rewarded as required to encourage future growth of the individuals as well as their ideas and strengths. A long tradition in the Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Programs is to ensure that the expertise that exists are flowed down to the less experienced Engineers to provide them with the tools necessary to perform with excellence. Mentoring and enabling future leaders is an ongoing tradition where Engineers are able to make individual decisions affecting the Program with the surety and confidence that allows a leadership growth as a natural course. The X-55A program did not use a traditional, tiered program office, but invented a small, agile program office to compliment the technical pace of the program. Traditional milestone-based reviews were eliminated in favor of more frequent, informal meetings to respond more rapidly to issues as they arose. A web-based data management tool was used to access data across multiple geographic locations by multiple Government and industry entities. By fundamentally changing the way government and industry work together as a team, the X- 55A program demonstrated that it is possible to significantly reduce the bureaucratic overhead associated with typical development efforts without sacrificing safety or quality AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 5

6 IV. ADAPTING TO COMPLEXITY: (HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH YOUR PROGRAM S UNIQUE COMPLEXITIES) = 20 POINTS Identify the Program s Market Uncertainty level How new is your product to your market and users, based on the definitions below. Then describe how you deal and address this specific uncertainty: - Derivative an improvement of an existing product/system. - Platform a new generation in an existing product line. - New to the Market a product or system adopted from another market - New to the World - breakthrough product, never seen before Identify the Program s Technological Uncertainty using the definitions below. Then describe how you deal and address this uncertainty: - Low-tech: application of mature, well-established technology - Medium Technology: existing technology modified to meet new design requirements - High-Technology: recently developed new technology - Super High- Technology: nonexisting technology that needs to be developed during the program. Identify the level of your System Complexity using the definitions below. Then explain how you are dealing with this level of complexity: - An Assembly performing a single function. X-55A Demonstrated recently developed composite elements that would put in the New to the Market category due to the use of composites in a market that has not explored this in primary and secondary structure before. To reduce the uncertainty during the conceptual design phase of this project, a series of tests, trials and process development efforts were undertaken to reduce the risk of using these technologies. X-55A Demonstrated recently developed composite elements that would put in the high technology category. During the conceptual design phase of this project, a series of tests, trials and process development efforts were undertaken to reduce the risk of using these technologies as well as familiarize the workforce with the new methods and materials to be used. This approach also provided the Customer with important data that substantiated the original development and our approach to using the technologies. X-55A would fall into the System category as a complete flying aircraft. The primary demonstration was the composite structure but the total flying article incorporates all of the subsystems required to fly AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 6

7 - A Sub-system fitting within a larger system. - A System a collection of subsystems performing multiple functions. - An Array a System of Systems ; a widely dispersed collection of systems serving a common mission. Identify the Pace and Urgency of your team s effort using the definitions below. Then describe how you deal with the program s pace requirements: - Regular timing no specific time pressures. Fast/Competitive time to market is important for competitiveness. - Time Critical there is an absolute and criticalto-success deadline. - Blitz there is a crisis element driving the need for immediate response Other Complexities & Uncertainties - Describe other complexities and unknown factors faced by this program and how you addressed them. While X-55A was a fast paced program by design, it was a one-off technical demonstrator to lead to future markets. The unique large scale, out of autoclave (OoA), Large integrated assemblies and radically reduced parts count demonstrated a lower cost, rapidly produced, lighter weight aircraft technique which was new and complex in that the challenge of out-time, hand placement accuracy had to be addressed as the airframe was built. To this end Tiger Teams were formed to specifically address and solve those issues prior to starting the assemblies. This not only reduced risk but helped with the success of the build AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 7

8 V. METRICS (HOW DO YOU MEASURE PROGRAM S PERFORMANCE) = 30 POINTS (Note: We are not looking for $ results, but the relative percentage achieved. In particular indicate what specific metrics and data you are using that drive the program beyond standard measures of schedule, budget, and performance, and which have contributed to your program s focus and its success.) Customer - How do you measure the impact of your program on your customer and your customer s satisfaction? Include a description of your metrics, as well as numerical evidence. Performance - How do you measure your program s performance in traditional terms such as schedule, budget, requirements, and business results? Preparing the Future - How do you measure and assess the long-term contribution of your program to the corporation/organization? Team - How do you measure and assess the impact of your program on your team development and employee satisfaction? The ACCA program created a deliberately small, agile program office to compliment the technical pace of the program. Traditional milestone-based reviews were eliminated in favor of more frequent, informal meetings to respond more rapidly to issues as they arose. This approach allows a strong communication based evaluation of Customer satisfaction on a weekly, if not more frequent timeline. No numerical metrics were used. As schedule was a key driver, extremely detailed Engineering and Manufacture schedules were developed to track progress against expenditures for Earned Value. This also allowed a tracking of the progress against budget to anticipate the overall performance. Requirements were tracked for inclusion through a Tailored Aircraft Certification database in order to insure that all were met. The X-55A contribution to the Corporation can be measured by the interest in the Customer base to incorporate next generation composites into future Programs as more of that base is familiar with the accomplishments of the X-55A Program. The team was empowered to take responsibility and make critical decisions towards the success of the Program and understood the implications of its success and simply couldn t resist the chance to make technical history. As a relatively small team, personal communications across all tiers allowed not only management, but peers to judge and bolster satisfaction about their contribution. Unique Metrics - Describe any unique metrics you are using to measure your program s progress and how do you focus it for outstanding success AVIATION WEEK PROGRAM EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE 8