Mitigating Diminishing Manufacturing Sources Material Shortages (DMS/MS) and Obsolescence for the T-6 Canopy Fracturing Initiation System (CFIS).

摘要

The Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) lost the supplier for its canopy fracturing initiation system (CFIS) with no prospect for a replacement. This forced a complete CFIS redesign to supply both an active production line and sustain fielded aircraft. Compounding the problem, the existing CFIS became obsolete, which forced an interim design to be produced until a final long term solution was fielded. This thesis developed a method to optimize the redesign by determining the lowest cost path for both fielding the interim design and phasing in the final retrofit. Using the Excel Solver (registered trademark) modeling program, an optimal rate was found to expedite interim design introduction and fleet changeover to the final design. The analysis concluded that using achievable stretch goals, existing production capacity could be adjusted to field the final configuration at the lowest cost.