DIVIDING TIME: LAB GROWTH/RD/PRODUCTION LESSONS LEARNED FROM STA-54 RE-DEVELOPMENT

摘要

Starting with five scientists, the STA-54 (space Shuttle Tile Ablator-54) project seemed more like an extended test. The material, developed 20 years prior, was being resurrected at Lockheed Martin's Materials Technology Lab due to the Columbia disaster. A year later the project ballooned with detailed specifications and 35+ staff. Lessons learned from STA-54 will teach you how to deal with the growing pains of a successful research project or see testing needs grow from a large contract win.A group of five employees works entirely different than a group of thirty-five while production requirements often conflict with R&D methods. What can you do to avoid pitfalls while your workgroup doubles or your small lab project outgrows its origins?This paper centers on how to keep the big five under control: documentation, knowledge, leadership, agility, and confusion leading to a strong, high performance group that meets schedule and cost goals. Applications of this management philosophy include: When your team doubles, how do you train them fast while reducing confusion? When you build a prototype piece of tooling and know you might scrap it next week, how can you avoid full documentation while keeping the important details intact?