[American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 28th Aerodynamic Measurement Technology, Ground...

Π AIAA Senior Member † AIAA Member

American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics

MULTIDISIPLINARY DESIGN OPTIMIZATION WITH VDOT USING MEARS

By

Roger Herdyπ Senior Director for Technology Development

Qualis Corporation 689 Discovery Drive, Suite 400

Huntsville, AL 35806 (256) 327-3448

[email protected]

And

Damian Yañez† Manager Business Development Vdot™ Solutions

ESI North America - One City Place Drive, Suite 520 St. Louis, MO 63141

(314) 667-5672 [email protected]

ABSTRACT

The science of planning, creating, and sustaining effective and affordable infrastructure, supply chain management, and maintenance to support Civil and Government operations throughout the nation and the world is reaching unprecedented requirements to both optimize and carry the necessary bandwidth of information. In virtually every industry, the flow of information becomes the lynchpin and focal point of any true advances in Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO). For this new era of MDO, new paradigms that surpass the existing approaches are needed for the exploitation of interactions among disparate disciplines to improve performance, lower cost, and shorten the product/system design cycle while simultaneously balancing potential changes in priorities. At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), a new software platform has emerged that has the promise to truly implement MDO with the power of the internet and the ability to orchestrate Contractor and Government resources that excel using their own familiar tools. It is called VdotTM (coined after the first derivative of velocity, or acceleration) and is a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software product offered by ESI Group. The process management methodology that Qualis Corporation has demonstrated and will soon further implement using VdotTM has the potential to revolutionize MDO.

28th Aerodynamic Measurement Technology,Ground Testing, and Flight Testing Conference <br><i>i25 - 28 June 2012, New Orleans, Louisiana

AIAA 2012-3171

Copyright © 2012 by Roger Herdy. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission.

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mailto:[email protected]�

mailto:[email protected]�

1 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

I. Introduction: Why Vdot™ for Multidisciplinary Design Optimization?

One major feature of the VdotTM platform is that it allows an organization to visualize information flows between the various program tasks (whether they are diverse phases of a product or system life, or deal with aspects of manufacturability, operability, or serviceability) which aids in defining true predecessor and successor relationships. These relationships have been demonstrated in a platform framework that creates a virtual topology with links between disparate tools such as MS Office applications, computer-aided design (CAD) tools, science and physics based analysis tools, and the overall organization structure. These relationships will help predict the early, late, or on-time completion of tasks as they relate to the rest of each organization’s program elements.

II. Challenge: DoDI 5000.2, where MDO would be useful.

As an example, the latest revision to Department of Defense Issuances (DODI) 5000.2 (2 December 2008) is the first major change to acquisition policy in over 5 years, and reflects the Department’s determination to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its enterprise-wide acquisition business processes so it can continue to provide Warfighters with the best weapons systems and support in the world. The new directive includes: (1) a mandatory acquisition process entry point: programs will be required to proceed through a Materiel Development Decision Review to ensure they are based on approved requirements and a rigorous assessment of alternatives. (2) Competitive Prototyping: programs will be required to implement acquisition strategies requiring a technology development phase where two or more competing teams will produce prototypes of the system or key system elements. Consequently, technologies will have to be demonstrated and proven before engineering development is initiated. (3) More frequent and effective program reviews to assess progress. Two key engineering reviews, the Preliminary Design Review and the Critical Design Review, become significant program decision points to allow acquisition authorities to assess progress. (4) Configuration Steering Boards: will be implemented to preclude destabilizing requirements changes and avoid a problem that has traditionally contributed to increased costs and extended schedules. (5) More effective test and evaluation: test activity will be integrated into every acquisition development phase to facilitate early identification and correction of technical and operational deficiencies. The varied multidisciplines involved, which include personnel from all aspects of an organization, beg optimization to properly implement the necessary design features.

III. Specific MDO application example: the Engineering Change Proposal process

While Vdot can certainly help, improve, and optimize the facilitation of each of these broad requirements and this paper will touch on these aspects in a broad and general fashion. The majority of this paper will focus on a subset of the requirements of DODI elements MIL-STD-973 and MIL-HDBK-61A, specifically the Engineering Change Proposal (ECP) process. Furthermore, this paper will discuss the MDO approach taken by two Government organizations (the US Army and the US Marine Corps) and two Contractor organizations (Qualis Corporation and ESI Group) as they relate to the ECP process.

First, a brief discussion on just how we define the ECP process: an ECP is a formal process used to propose a change to a configuration item and its approved baseline performance requirement and configuration documentation. The initiation of an ECP begins at the Government's request for one or more of the reasons cited below:

Solicited ECPS

. Whenever the Government identifies a need or requirement to change a configuration item (CI) and its configuration documentation, a Class I ECP is formally requested from the contractor. A request for an ECP is coordinated with the applicable Government Contracting Officer prior to being released to the contractor.

Unsolicited ECPs

. As a general rule, unsolicited Class I ECPs are discouraged. However, at the discretion of the procuring activity, a preliminary ECP may be submitted to allow evaluation of the desirability of expending resources to fully document a proposed change. Changes that impact the following areas are instances where unsolicited ECPs may be justified:

• Safety • Compatibility • Correction of Defects

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• Survivability • Security • Product improvement(s) that may significantly reduce life cycle costs, including Value

Engineering Change Proposals (VECP) consistent with the DFAR Value Engineering clause of the applicable contract

• Technology improvements.

ECPs are submitted throughout the acquisition and post-acquisition process whenever changes are required to the approved configuration baseline of a system. Engineering changes can originate with either the contractor or the Government. In either case, the Government will need detailed information from the contractor for evaluation of the technical, cost, and schedule effects of implementing the change. Normally, the Government instructs the contractor to prepare the formal ECP through the contracting officer. The original idea to make the change could originate from the Government of the contractor, or even from the user of the equipment. Once the ECP is formally submitted, the Program Manager (PM) or Alternate Program Manager (APM) is responsible for its review, decision to disapprove or approve, and implementation (including funding).

IV. ECP process implementation

So, where would an ECP process be required? Qualis Corporation was the Prime Contractor on the Technical, Management and Logistics Support (TMALS) contract, and is now the Prime Contractor to the successor contract, supporting the Program Executive Office for Combat Support, Combat Service Support (PEO CS & CSS). Both contracts provide support to the Robotic Systems Joint Project Office (RSJPO) aboard the Detroit Arsenal in Warren, MI with its mission to develop, acquire, test, field, and sustain a variety of ground robotic systems for both the US Army and US Marine Corps. With two subcontractors, Qualis is providing acquisition, engineering, logistics, test, technical and graphic artist support. Qualis supports the RSJPO Headquarters on the Detroit Arsenal, as well as its Joint Robotic Repair and Fielding Activity (JRRF) on Selfridge Air National Guard Base north of Detroit. Qualis further provides JRRF contractor support at the JRRF satellite offices / detachments at Ft Leonard Wood, MO; Ft Benning, GA; Ft Bragg, NC; Ft Polk, LA; Ft Irwin, CA; 29 Palms, CA; Ft Monroe, VA; Washington DC; Huntsville, AL; Tyndall AFB, FL; and Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan.

With the RSJPO procuring primarily COTS robots, Qualis provides systems engineering for development and acquisition of robotic systems that locate and destroy improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Our engineers/analysts identify operational requirements, establish performance specifications, and evaluate/test new COTS robotic systems. The engineers, with a background in systems engineering and expertise in robotic systems, work with the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) who build and test prototype and developmental designs. We support this system design/development with requirements analysis, functional analysis and allocation, design synthesis, system integration, verification/test, and system analysis/control. Often, an ECP is required to be coordinated within this multidisciplinary environment.

V. Vdot: an introduction primer

First, the reader needs an introduction to the Vdot process management platform. Integrated Program Management Systems (IPMS) and Lean Six-Sigma (LSS) methodologies are becoming increasingly popular in Civil and Government organizations where they strive for better efficiency in their processes and seek out applications of MDO methods toward a wide variety of engineering design problems. Historically, the LSS focus was first applied on manufacturing processes, but the field of view is expanding along with IPMS to include engineering design, analysis, and business processes where the development of general purpose MDO principles (including strategies to decompose design problems and modeling and simulation strategies) has been recognized as important.

To succeed in improving the efficiency of any team, you must first capture the processes employed to a sufficient level of detail to understand the flow of information or deliverables required to produce your end product/s. To do this, most IPMS and/or LSS facilitators gather a group of subject matter experts together to create a process diagram or value stream map. Typically, they use poster paper / sticky notes to capture information, then manually transfer that data to a picture in PDF format, MS PowerPoint, or Visio. Unfortunately, this is a painstaking effort and errors often occur in the transfer of information. Also, it is frequently difficult to arrange for all key parties to physically be together in a room to collaborate on the process definition. In addition, the diagrams are

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static, and there is no way to easily deploy them to your teams. Testing of the processes is essentially an academic exercise, and the documentation quickly becomes outdated and unused. To address these concerns, a group of engineers from The Boeing Company developed a software platform called Vdot. The name is derived from the mathematical symbol for the derivative of velocity which is acceleration. Vdot is now a COTS process management platform from ESI Group that provides the ability to define, deploy, and execute desktop processes for teams in a distributed network environment. Vdot provides the ability to route data, launch applications, and it provides automatic real-time project status. Vdot’s capabilities have been used on a wide variety of engineering and business processes to enable key elements for development of general purpose MDO algorithms (including uncertainty quantification and robust design).

At the atomic level of Vdotis the “Smart Task”, shown in Figure 1. Smart Tasks are analogous to kits in the lean factory in which everything an assembly worker needs for the job at hand is gathered into a package and delivered to the point of action. Once your process is understood, which includes identifying the scope of the processes, i.e., what products you are working to create (output) and what you need to create them (inputs, and instructions such as work, embedded tools, time), a Smart Task can be created. Smart Tasks include a complete description of what needs to be done, when, by whom, and defines the inputs and required outputs for each task.

Figure 1: Vdot at an atomic level, the “Smart Task”

Once the process objectives are defined, you can begin to design activities required to achieve those objectives and their products, and the associated inputs/deliverables for each step. Vdot’s point and click graphical interface (Figure 2) allows you to quickly and easily define processes electronically by combining “Smart Tasks” into “Smart Processes”. Vdot then makes it easy to define the flow of information between process participants so you have a true awareness of “who needs what from whom”. This visual map helps identify undocumented steps in your processes that may be significantly impacting throughput. It also highlights areas where tasks are being worked sequentially that could actually be worked in parallel. One difficulty in applying IMPS and/or LSS methods to your processes is that there is often no existing data on cycle time and effort to establish a baseline for efficiency comparisons between your as-is and to-be states. Vdot can help you capture this information by providing a simple interface for applying your initial estimates to each task in the process and rolling up the overall duration and hours on the entire process template. Once your process is defined as a Vdot process template, it may be activated and deployed instantly to your teams. This creates a dynamic copy (instantiation) of the process template and begins leading the process participants through the activities, ensuring they get the right information and tools at the right time. Teammates actively work within your processes ensuring proper project execution. Status is automatically gathered in real time as the work is done. Dashboards that summarize all the tasks can provide instant status updates for an organization. These process threads can be grouped into logical topology clusters and be nested as required to create a hierarchy of process threads, which combined form applied and reusable MDO templates.

Detailed Information Flows from “Upstream” Tasks

Start Draft Report

Start: 03-19-2011

Due: 03-22-2011

Senior Analyst

Reference Data

Draft Report

Analyzed Data

Full Resource Definition: Owner, Instructions, Man-hours, Duration

Automatic Status: As Performed (Red, Yellow or Green means Stopped, In-Work or Delivered)

Automatic Reference to Multiple Data Types: e.g. Forms, Procedures, etc.

Embed Other Tools (i.e. Applications) needed to do the Work

Results Information Flows to “Downstream” Tasks

Results from preceding Task

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Figure 2. Defining process maps using Vdot’s Process Editor

The real-time process visibility is great for managers, but there is another benefit of Vdot for the

workforce: a real time “to do” list. The employee can see a prioritized list of his/her assignments and whether or not they are late or are on the critical path (which Vdot calculates in a real-time, dynamic fashion). Vdot automatically prioritizes task assignments based on the traditional project management approach of analyzing the path with the least slack. However, with Vdot, a manager can reprioritize tasks for an employee when circumstances dictate. As a matter of fact, most of the workforce never needs to see the process diagram, except maybe during the initial planning stage. They can enjoy the benefit of seeing their “to do” list be worked off and new work assigned in real time.

With the powerful ability of Vdot to map a wide variety of processes, meeting the challenges of mapping the processes inherent in DODI 5000.2 and facilitating a MDO environment can be accomplished. Since Vdot allows the embedding of the individual applications necessary to accomplish the work, an organization can quickly benefit from the Vdot implementation and reduce organizational uncertainty as to the efficiency of the MDO.

V. ECP process at RSJPO and Vdot

The ECP process Qualis and our Government customers need to exercise on the PEO CS & CSS contract at RSJPO is shown in the flowcharts of Figures 3a and 3b. As can been seen, the graphical nature of the ECP process lends itself nicely to the process mapping ability of Vdot. Vdot Smart Tasks also can act as decision gates, looping operations, and batch jobs (i.e., automatic execution of a desired result, such as the generation of a report). Smart Tasks also instantly notify the next Smart Task owner in a process that their tasks are ready to be worked so there are minimized delays of executing the process flow.

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Figure 3a: ECP process at RSJPO

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Figure 3b: ECP process at RSJPO

VII. Multi-User ECP Automated Review System (MEARS) as an application embedded in Vdot

Many times, other tools or platforms have already been created that are stand-alone application packages that the Vdot environment could reproduce yet the inherent customization of a particular component of an organizations requirements dictate that these applications be embedded within a Vdot Smart Task. It was discovered when researching ways to capture the RSJPO’s ECP process that one such application exists that fits nicely into the process thread of Figures 3a and 3b, and this application is a Government-Off-The-Shelf (GOTS) product called MEARS (Multi-User ECP Automated Review System). This application tool was developed at Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, AL, by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missle Life Cycle Management Command (AMCOM) Integrated Material Management Command (IMMC). MEARS is a web-based software application for creating, processing, and archiving engineering change documents according to MIL-STD-973, MIL-HDBK-61A, and related US Department of Defense (DoD) regulations. Within MEARS, the standard ECP content is based on the DD Form 1692. Also available is DD1693 (Short Form) document completion and submission capability. MEARS provides

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the ability to integrate engineering drawings, sketches, charts, documents, etc. into the electronic document where they can be viewed. Comments, suggestions, etc. can be electronically added to the scanned images by each of the authorized reviewers. Comments can also be added when the user is casting a vote to approve or disapprove an ECP.

When Vdot was used to map the entire organizational effort to execute an ECP, MEARS was considered an important step in the process. For a top-level view of the MDO for the ECP process, Figure 4 is a schematic that deals with the review sequences contained in Figures 3a and 3b. With Vdot, there is no need to have the entire process documented to start using it – processes can be defined at a high level as a starting point and continuously refined along the way using nested processes. By double-clicking on a nested Smart Task (indicated by the double stack tasks icon, or as a looping operation in the Smart Tasks of Figure 2), you are able to instantly navigate into the sub-process and add the detailed steps necessary to define that level of the process. Processes can be nested to any level of detail you desire. This makes understanding and communicating your processes much simpler and also aids in compartmentalizing the process definition. MEARS is one such compartmentalization.

Figure 4: Top level view of the MDO for the ECP process

VIII. MDO Results Summary for Vdot utilizing MEARS

A view of the RSPJO ECP process mapped within Vdot and containing the MEARS tool as one application embedded in a Smart Task is shown graphically in Figure 5. Figure 6 shows the exploded view of one of the looping operations (a nested set of operations as explained before) required in the RSJPO ECP process. While the RSJPO ECP process was easily captured in this draft template with Vdot and using MEARS is a logical part of the process, that does not mean there is no room for improvement. Vdot helps improve your processes in a number of ways. As mentioned previously, it allows you to quickly capture all details of your processes in an accessible format that can be continuously refined and reused. It also helps you capture a baseline of your current state and see the problem areas through actual execution of the processes by your teams. One extremely valuable advantage of using Vdot is that you can adapt your active processes on-the-fly to fix bottlenecks and problems immediately without stopping progress. Tasks may be added or removed and changes to the information flow may be incorporated as necessary for improvement. Any changes you make may be saved as a new process template for the next project so that you can gain from your actual experiences and capture the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work.

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Figure 5: RSJPO ECP process mapped into Vdot (note MEARS compartment)

Vdot can easily interact with other planning systems to further facilitate MDO. Microsoft Project files can be imported to give you a starting point at a process template design, and exported if the user wants to see the results of MDO in Microsoft Project format. In addition, the Earned Value Management features include the ability to export work package status data in XML format from the inherent database Vdot resides upon. The file holds the actual or projected start, the current percent complete, and the actual or projected end for each work package. It is important to note that all of the management data is tied to the state of the project’s processes and task deliverables, which advance automatically as team members perform their tasks.

A “Resource Dashboard” shows a project’s or functional team’s projected workload and number of tasks in various states: on time or late, and not ready, ready/in-work or finished. Again, this information lets managers see where attention is most needed and makes it easy to reassign resources to address bottlenecks if they develop.

Vdot’s ability to quickly embed other tools or platforms simplifies design optimization, and adding MEARS as part of the MDO approach is a perfect example.

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Figure 6: The exploded view of one of the RSJPO ECP process looping operations

IV. Conclusion

This paper addresses 1) the development of MDO frameworks (including framework elements such as environments, visualization techniques, and interfaces to CAD); 2) the development of general purpose MDO principles (including strategies to decompose design problems and modeling and simulation strategies); 3) the development of general purpose MDO algorithms (including uncertainty quantification and robust design); and 4) shape and topology optimization challenges both abstract and applied. In summary:

1. Vdot allows the framework for the development of a MDO environment, and this paper uses the example of the ECP process that is part of DoDI 5000.2 which requires multidisciplinary design to implement.

2. By its very nature, Vdot includes strategies to decompose design problems, and shows how other applications such as MEARS can be folded into the modeling and simulation strategy.

3. The example of the RSJPO ECP process mapping shows the development of general purpose MDO algorithms in the reusable and multifunctional process templates that is a feature of Vdot.

4. The applied shape and topology optimization was discussed for a specific application of the RSJPO ECP process.

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