Page 59: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 1988)

waiting until the equipment or sys- tem was designed and even built was too late. The support (logistics) must be considered at the initial design time, since this is one of the critical factors affecting how it will function in the future. This brought about the need for more standard- ization in the documentation of the design at an early stage.

Application of

New Technologies

What are some of the techniques or technologies that will bring this about? Going back to the initial design phase of the equipment or system, it will be necessary to devel- op the technical drawings in digital form using CAD/CAE (Computer

Aided Design and Engineering) sys- tems in a standardized format so that the data may be recorded, transmitted and later used and pos- sibly modified by various support groups. In a similar manner, the technical specifications and parts lists must be in a standardized digi- tal form. The DOD-sponsored

CALS program is addressing these issues and setting the standards in cooperation with industry groups.

DOD Plans

The impact of this program on the military from both a cost and logistics capability standpoint is tremendous. DOD has recently is- sued a directive calling for all new systems development after October 1 to be compliant with the CALS standard.

Although there will be a cost to industry to convert to these stan- dards, there should be significant savings in the production and sup- port side, and even in the bidding process.

Impact on Industry

What will be the impact on this program to the commercial manu- facturing area? If in fact the manu- facturer is required to standardize the documentation to do business with the military, then in all proba- bility it will be economical to stan- dardize on all design documenta- tion. This means that the mainte- nance management systems being developed and used in industry, for both commercial marine and shore- based industry, will be able to use standard interfaces to technical support documents. It can promote a whole new level of operations and maintenance support not economi- cally practical today.

Just as the advent of a standard operating system for microcomput- ers dramatically reduced the cost of computer systems to industry, so could a standardization of technical documentation. As an example to- day, the cost of data collection, cod- ing and entry for a maintenance management system is more than the cost of the standard hardware and software to process and main- tain it.

With technical data provided in some standardized form from the manufacturer, it would be possible to integrate the maintenance and repair procedures directly into the maintenance management systems, at a relatively low cost.

The Future

It will be interesting to watch the progress of the CALS program in

November, 1988 61 the military procurement process. It will also be a shame if the commer- cial/industrial sector does not take full advantage of this much-needed technical advance. With the mainte- nance and repair information going to digital form, it opens up the use of other technical advances, particu- larly in the area of data collection devices for various types of equip- ment monitoring. An example of an application already being used is the collection and analysis of vibration analysis trending data for machin- ery condition monitoring, although this has been limited by a lack of any standardization. Condition monitoring could be expanded to many more types of trending data in digital form, particularly if some standards are defined.

The continued reduction in ships' crews could lead to larger and more centralized monitoring and control centers for large fleets of ships where the engineering expertise can be more economically maintained.

This would be similar to the tech- niques used in the space program. It is one of the techniques that could help solve the noncompetitive crew costs of the industrialized countries.

The implementation of the CALS program could do much to promote such advances in the future. - to obtain more mileage from your chemioal budget.

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