Using design for manufacture and assembly to meet Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System cost goals

Defense AT&L, Nov-Dec, 2004 by Steve Watts

In our environment of state-of-the-art weapon systems development, the emphasis is largely on ensuring technological feasibility to meet performance requirements. However, for overall program success, the manufacturing processes and costs associated with the design must also be addressed. Numerous studies show that the most effective time to implement cost-saving changes is early in the product design cycle. One way to achieve this is to ensure that design engineers and manufacturing engineers work concurrently to develop the design. The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) Program has created the opportunity for this type of environment through the implementation of design for manufacture and assembly (DFMA) workshops during the system development and demonstration (SDD) phase.

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The Genesis of APKWS

The Army has identified a requirement for a low-cost precision weapon system to fill the critical weapon system gap between the current aimed Hydra-70 rocket system and the HELLFIRE anti-armor missile. Our nation's military strategy requires systems that are more precise, lighter, more deployable, and that produce higher ratios of kills per platform. The future projected military campaigns will be characterized by military operations in urban terrain, a proliferation of soft to lightly armored targets, fighting in close proximity to noncombatants, and a high potential for collateral damage.

In February 2003, the Aviation Rockets and Missiles Project Office of the Tactical Missiles Program Executive Office, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., awarded General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products a 30-month (incentivized to 25-month) SDD contract to develop the APKWS. General Dynamics has contracted with BAE Systems, Nashua, N.H., to develop a newly designed guidance section that integrates with the existing Hydra-70 components and launch equipment. Using a semi-active laser-guided seeker, the APKWS will be a highly accurate weapon that complements the HELLFIRE missile in a precision strike by offering a lower-cost alternative against soft-point targets, while minimizing collateral damage. This system will provide improved accuracy over the current Hydra-70 munitions used on the AH-64 Apache, the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, as well as various other rotary and fixed-wing aircraft platforms. The APKWS fully embodies the Army's vision for a lighter, versatile, and decisively lethal force.

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In September 2002 (five months prior to SDD award), the Army conducted an independent engineering and manufacturing readiness level (EMRL) review of the advanced technology demonstration (ATD) phase design of the APKWS. There is an ongoing effort by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Future Combat Systems (FCS) to establish EMRLs to assess the manufacturing process maturity of a design--similar to the way the technology readiness levels address the technology maturity of a design. The review of APKWS was conducted by the production engineering division of the Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center at the U.S. Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala. It represents the first application to a major Army missile system. The purpose of the review was to assess the maturity of the manufacturing processes and materials associated with the design, identify producibility issues early, and assess the program's readiness to transition into SDD.

The conclusion from the EMRL review was that all the manufacturing processes and materials associated with the APKWS design were relatively mature, and no issues would preclude this program from transitioning into SDD. However, given the schedule constraints in SDD and the average unit production cost goals, producibility emphasis would need to be placed on several assemblies in order to meet rate requirements. The most significant concern was with the seeker optics assembly. The design was very complex, consisted of numerous parts, required substantial manual assembly by skilled optics technicians, and was not readily conducive to automated assembly processes. In addition, there were concerns with critical characteristics that made the design difficult and costly to manufacture and prone to breakage in handling and assembly of the optic fibers. The control actuation system also presented producibility concerns because it, too, consisted of numerous parts and required extensive manual assembly. Many of the parts were very intricate, requiring tedious assembly processes, and included an area that required match-drilling operations between two parts. The recommendation from the EMRL review was that several assemblies needed to undergo an extensive DFMA process to reduce the number of parts associated with the designs and to generate ideas that would make the designs more cost effective to manufacture.

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The APKWS program has an aggressive 30-month SDD phase and challenging cost targets for the production unit price. These factors drive the need for innovative approaches during the SDD phase like DFMA workshops and other concurrent engineering techniques to quickly and efficiently focus the development team on meeting the schedule and cost targets.