Quality Magazine - March 2009 - (Page 56) CA SE ST U DI ES The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project is a galactic-scale prototyping operation with tens of thousands of parts in various stages of product development. Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech controls in place. But when I stepped back and looked at this short-run, one fabrication lot manufacturing environment and saw how successful the lab has been over many previous missions, I decided that I was the one who needed to adapt.” INTEGRATION IS KEY Clark concluded that if his lean team was going to keep up with the frenetic workflow and get the massive concurrent part validation job done, it was essential for quality team members to be specialists—not in measurement equipment and software, but in helping design and manufacturing engineers develop and meet acceptance criteria for specialized parts that have absolutely no tolerance for failure. In fact, a number of coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) and other equipment that did not have an easily understood common interface were, at Clark’s recommendation, shipped out the door. Today JPL has CMMs of various sizes as well as an articulating arm with tactile probes and laser trackers, all equipped with interoperable PC-DMIS Enterprise Metrology Solutions (EMS) software from Wilcox Associates Inc. (North Kingstown, RI). In addition, many of the more than 200 contract part manufacturers and all of the independent measurement labs that JPL uses can measure parts and generate standardized reports using the same measurement software in conjunction with many different types of measurement system hardware. As a result, the lean inspection team has Interoperability Boosts Lean Inspection T he pressure is definitely on at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, Pasadena, CA), where scientists, engineers and technicians are working evenings and holidays to design, manufacture and test the cruise stage and descent stage instruments and rover for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project. Gerald Clark, a senior quality engineer and leader of quality assurance inspection services for JPL, says that the MSL project is a galactic-scale prototyping operation with tens of thousands of parts in various stages of product development. In most cases, the assigned team will only make three or less of any single component for the project. The first group of components and assemblies will be used for a variety of destructive and nondestructive testing. The second will be sent on the Mars mission. An identical rover will stay behind in a simulated Mars environment lab, where it will be used to run through anticipated maneuvers before they are attempted millions of miles away on Mars. In addition to managing a team of 10 people and personally doing a good deal of the inspection work, Clark’s job also includes the assessment and acquisition of personnel, equipment and measurement services needed to validate more than 10,000 parts, components and assemblies. While the methodology for fabrication of hardware for the MSL project is called “concurrent engineering,” for Clark and his team it means “everything happening at once.” Clark used to work in a conventional military/aerospace manufacturing environment, in which design, planning and manufacturing were tightly regimented. “At fi rst I thought our engineers and manufacturing people were a bunch of cowboys,” says Clark. “It seemed like they didn’t have rigid BENEFITS Using PC-DMIS Enterprise Metrology Solutions (EMS) software, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and its suppliers can create standardized measurement reports despite the use of different types of measurement system hardware. 56 QUALITY | March 2009 The open architecture of PC-DMIS allows changes to be made to the program at any location in the program and in any sequence. PC-DMIS gives JPL the ability to execute source inspections remotely via e-mail, eliminating the need to travel to a supplier’s facility. www.qualitymag.com http://www.qualitymag.com
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