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Original Date: 07/10/2006
Revision Date: / /
Information : Rapid Acquisition of Manufactured Parts Program
The Rapid Acquisition of Manufactured Parts Program at Tobyhanna Army Depot has enabled the facility to better serve its customer base in the rapid manufacture of printed wiring assemblies with minimal documentation. Future enhancements to the system will help to ensure progress and success of the program.
In the mid-1990s Tobyhanna Army Depot (TYAD) installed the Rapid Acquisition and Manufacturing of Parts (RAMP) system to expedite the manufacture of printed wiring assemblies (PWAs), which greatly revolutionized the facility’s processes. The RAMP system, which integrates hardware and software at the workstation level for the semiautomatic assembly of PWAs, consists of three major functional areas that include:
The factory floor where the actual manufacturing occurs
The Manufacturing Engineering Data Capture (MEDC) system
The business process that has now been replaced by the Product Data Master Scheduling System (PDMSS) and the SAP element
The factory floor consists of all of the equipment and facilities to accommodate the actual building of the hardware. The floor equipment includes a parts presentation system that presents the component parts to the operator in the proper order and visually indicates to the operator the location and orientation of the part on the printed wiring board (PWB).
MEDC is the software system that acts as the media to transport information between the different applications used in the design layout process. The process starts when parts list and component parts list data are entered. If the component library does not contain the part data, this information must be entered and becomes permanently stored in the library for later retrieval. Typical data includes form, electrical values, pin data, classification schemes, and gate data. The next step of the process is to scan the artwork data in whatever format it can be presented. RAMP software then takes the data inputs and generates a schematic that operators use to generate a net list. TYAD software is then run to establish all the details about the actual printed wiring board PWB’s construction, including hole location, circuit spacing, layer spacing, and other data required to manufacture the PWB. The PDMSS and SAP systems capture labor hours and material costs on a per-unit basis and function as the floor scheduling and control system.
TYAD has realized productivity benefits from the use of the RAMP system. Depending on PWB complexity, design/layout time can be reduced from more than one month to less than one week. Errors in the design/layout process have been virtually eliminated due to the reduction of manual intervention in many steps of the process.
TYAD is continuing to make major changes to its RAMP system to ensure its ongoing success. Work is in progress to migrate MEDC to a PC-based environment that runs on OrCAD Ultra. Further preliminary investigative work is ongoing that will integrate the Standard for the Exchange of Product Data and the ISO 10303-210 Application Protocol for Electronic Assembly, Interconnect, and Packaging Design. These changes will ensure process continuity, sustainment of investment, and supportability of the software and hardware systems.
For more information see the
Point of Contact for this survey.
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