ACaPS Exercise I Summary

This document contains two parts:

A purely textual summary provided by ACaPS project leader Hisup Park
A tabular summary created by Lockheed MSD cable shop specialist Frank Schalk

Overview

On August 9, 1994, the first exercise of the ACaPS project began at 9am. This consisted of enacting the negotiation, design data transfer, and production steps for a three-connector cable with approximately 40 wires originating from the largest connector. The wires were soldered to the connector pins.

The business transactions between Sandia National Laboratory, Livermore, CA and Lockheed, Sunnyvale CA were completed by 11 am.
This reflected the extensive preparations made prior to the exercise: in a more realistic situation, expect this to increase by 50% to 100%--the addtional time will be spent mainly in processing the design data from scratch. We did not wish the exercise to be snagged by mundane technical bloopers. So we had much of the data files prepared ahead of time. Next exercise will do away with much of the preparations.
Production took approximately 16.9 hours . Additional 8 hours were required to set the potting material.
The discrepancy between this and the 8.5 hours quoted in the final quote deserves an explanation. Following factors contributed:
- 8.5 hours was an estimate based on crimped pins. Frank did not have the time-standards for the soldering operation incorporated in his CMT, so he doubled the hours required to build the same cable with crimped pins.
- Unanticipated error was detected over half way into the production, requiring the first bundle assembly to be scrapped and a connector had to be desoldered and cleaned: total production time lost was approximately 3.5 hours, almost 3 of which were at the soldering station.
- Soldering and Potting steps took the most time, and was the biggest factor of uncertainty. (Most of the automated steps were completed in about an hour.) One of the supplied connectors was a used component: extra time was spent cleaning the pins of old solder. Frank estimates that the same cable with crimped pins would take about 5 hours to build from scratch. This is a factor worth considering for future designs.
- This being the first time, the production steps were not as steamlined as they could have been. Frank indicated that the production could be made more parallel, and less time should be required on setups and preparations.

The exercise demonstrated that collaboration between remote customer and production service is viable. For the sake of execution, we did resort to extensive prior preparations and sidestepped some key issues (See first message in Event Log). But these are items that can and will be addressed by activities already in progress. ACAPS exercise provides the basis from which to extrapolate what can be done through the agile manufacturing paradigm.

Summary of events

by Frank Schalk


                      ACAPS Exercise I

     Tuesday 9 Aug 94                             ( = ) - 10 min.
                            7     8     9     10    11    12    1     2     3
 1 Transaction setup        |.....|.....|==...|.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|
 2 Rough Quote RFQ          |.....|.....|..=..|.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|
 3 Rough Quote Submitted    |.....|.....|...=.|.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|
 4 Final Quote RFQ          |.....|.....|.....|=....|.....|.....|.....|.....|
 5 Final Quote Submitted    |.....|.....|.....|.=...|.....|.....|.....|.....|
 6 PO accepted              |.....|.....|.....|....=|.....|.....|.....|.....|
                                   Business       70.0 min.
 7 Input CMT data           |.....|.....|.....|.....=.....|.....|.....|.....|
 8 Generate programs        |.....|.....|.....|.....|=....|.....|.....|.....|
 9 Optimize,test WMTC pgm   |.....|.....|.....|.....|.==..|.....|.....|.....|
10 Set up, Plot Layout      |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|=....|.....|.....|
                                   Engineering  50.0 min.
11 Pin formboard            |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|.=...|.....|.....|
12 Route harness            |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|...=.|.....|.....|
13 Tape,tie ID              |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|===..|.....|
                                   Shop (1)       50.0 min.

   Wednesday 10 Aug 94
                            7     8     9    10    11    12     1     2     3
1 Pin harness               |.....|....==========...|.....|.....|.....|.....|
                                   Shop (1)      100.0 min
*2 Re-pin Formboard         |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|..=..|.....|.....|
*3 Re-route harness         |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|...=.|.....|.....|
*4 Tape,tie ID              |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|==...|.....|
 5 Print ID sleeves         |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|==...|.....|.....|
 6 Pin harness/adapters     |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|...===.========..|
                                   Shop (2)      170.0 min
* Rework (wrong wire)

   Thursday 11 Aug 94
                            7     8     9    10    11    12     1     2     3
 1 Pin harness/adapters     ========.============.=====...===.===.========..|
 2 Test Adapter cables      |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|..=..|.....|.....|
                                   Shop (2)      400.0 min

   Friday 12 Aug 94
                            6     7     8     9    10    11    12     1     2
1 Pin harness               ========.=====....|.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|
2 Test harness              |.....|.....|.=...|.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|
3 Pot harness >8 hr.cure    |.....|.....|.....|.....|.....|.....====>>>>>>>>|
                                   Shop (2)      180.0 min

     Summary:
          Business Transaction     - 70 min.   1.17 hr.
          Engineering              - 50 min.    .83
            *Shop ( Fab 1 )        -150 min.   2.50
          Shop ( Fab 2 )           -170 min.   2.83
                                   -400 min.   6.66
                                   -180 min       3.00
                                    =======
                                   16.99 hr.

Hisup Park

Frank Schalk
Lockheed Missile Systems Division
schalk@sparki.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com

Lane Wimberley
Lockheed AI Center
wimber@aic.lockheed.com