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As part of the JVYS PIF contract, SESI is fabricating and testing the UH-60 Blackhawk aircraft DGNS modification kits. A $4 million plus program, with scheduled deliveries of 30 complete kits per month, the DGSN system provides GPS enhanced navigation capabilities to Army aircrews. This firm, fixed, price delivery involved fabrication, testing, and packaging of all components and wiring to modify fielded aircraft.
Beginning with a technical drawing package for what was envisioned as a simple build-to-print effort, a collaborative effort among JVYS partner personnel, SESI manufacturing personnel and test engineers, the drawings underwent more than 100 successful detailed changes before the first critical assembly could be accepted. As drawing changes were validated and verified, it became apparent that full system testing would be required prior to delivery to the end customer. SESI developed and gained Government customer approval for a functional full system test program to validate effectiveness of the kits. The SESI developed test program validated the integrity of all in-house manufacturing and quality assurance processes and the true serviceability of all included MIL Specification components in a system of systems validation. All these changes were finally incorporated half way through the first scheduled production months.
Again with that same collaborative effort, and along with the SESI Lean manufacturing capabilities, by the end of the second scheduled month of production two months of manufacturing, assembly, testing, and quality assurance DGNS kit output was accomplished in less than 45 days. A true success story, by the end of the following month, production had increased to a point of being considerably ahead of schedule. Highlighting these successes, SESI was able to obtain accelerated deliveries from Government directed sources for components, and to complete final deliveries within the original expected budget constraints. All elements of cost, schedule and performance have been exceeded on this program. Based on this program’s past performance, a follow-on order has been requested for an additional 300 kits. |
