CIMdata Commentary
Key Takeaways:
- The U.S. Department of Defense announced a new Digital Engineering Strategy in June 2018 that dictates 5 key pillars in transitioning the U.S. defense industry from document centric engineering processes to digital, model driven processes for the design, development, manufacturing and on-going use and sustainment of complex weapons systems. The DoD estimates that over $256B is spent annually in U.S. military system sustainment operations.
- NLign Analytics is providing mission-critical 3D digital model technologies to the DoD in support of this Digital Engineering directive to optimize product quality, minimize critical military asset downtime, and reduce total lifecycle costs.
- NLign Analytics customers are seeing up to 33% improvement in the structural integrity review process time as well as improvements in aircraft structural integrity data quality from 15% to 95% usable for decision making without relying solely on experience based knowledge and “best guess” assumptions.
- NLign Analytics creates a robust 3D “Structural Lifecycle Digital Environment” for each weapon system, tracing structural integrity data from manufacturing through quality inspection and sustainment. This is accomplished by capturing operational in-service data, analyzing and visually displaying all 3D non-conformances, structural damage, and failure areas. This 3D visual information enables engineers to identify potential repairs and rework for each individual asset as well as across a family or fleet of similar systems.
- NLign Analytics technology is available in an easy-to-implement engineering desktop environment as well as a mobile tablet environment for part quality data analysis and 3D model interactive viewing throughout the virtual enterprise. It is being used on the manufacturing floor and in aircraft repair depots as well as by aerospace and defense supply chain partners.
- NLign Analytics technology can also work in combination with many existing commercial tools from the major PLM, ERP, MRO, and MES solution providers and/or legacy in-house developed custom software tools for non-destructive inspection and structural quality assessment.