Photo By Vanessa Flores | Working high atop a Stryker, Melinda Horn, technician, System Integration Division,...... read more read more
FORT BLISS, Texas (September 3, 2014) - In order to test the communications network during Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) 15.1, which will be taking place in October at Fort Bliss; the vehicle engineering designs needed to integrate NIE systems on Army Tactical Vehicles have been in the works since early June, and the actual installations of these systems on tactical vehicles came to completion in August.
Taking lead on the vehicle design and builds is System of Systems Integration, System Integration Division who works with Industry, Program Managers, and many other agencies that play integral parts in the technology that is tested during NIE.
According to Dave Ribail, chief of System Integration Division, Director, Capability Package; keeping sight of where the Army is headed with regards to Army Modernization is key in the design process and helps in recognizing the design aspects that must be considered to make sure the NIE is addressing capabilities that the Army has expressed an interest in obtaining.
“Before design even begins, we begin to formulate our design strategy by relying on face-to-face technical discussions with NIE system vendors and system owners at what we refer to as Bull Pen sessions. We continue to develop our design strategy by relying on the Horseblanket, which provides us critical information on placement of NIE systems within the formation,” said Ribail. “Every step of the way there are assessments of these systems being performed, like lab testing, that also provides information key to the engineering designs we are developing.”
Also taken into account, are the numbers of systems needed for the exercise and the missions these systems will be supporting. By teaming up with experts on these systems, as well as relying on technical experience and expertise garnered through participation in previous NIEs, System Integration Division has managed to compress the time period from engineering design to actual installation down to a few months.
“Everything we do is focused on becoming as efficient as we possibly can and improving on processes we use for vehicle integration,” Ribail explained. “Since we rely heavily on contractors to support vehicle integration, we also review our contract support structure to determine if it is right-sized for the level of effort required for vehicle integration, and we make changes as necessary to save money for future NIEs.”
Once the design stage is complete, the installation process begins and System Integration Division brings in the same entities that helped with the design. Since, there is a very narrow window for completing the installations on hundreds of tactical vehicles. The workforce is also expanded by bringing in additional technicians to install the NIE systems on the vehicles.
Installation branch chief for System Integration Division, Richard Dauz is responsible for ensuring that the original vehicles containing the design for the rest of the fleet, also known as Golden Vehicles, are built properly. He also is accountable for the entire fleet being built on schedule for the next stage in NIE, the Validation Exercise, also known as VALEX.
“Lead techs and other techs are the vital keys to the fleet build. They are the boots on the ground that make this happen,” said Dauz. “We now have all the Golden Vehicles and fleet vehicles built and ready for NIE 15.1.”
What is being created at the motor pool goes beyond designing and building the vehicles for NIE. The work being done today will become baseline designs for candidate systems as the Army moves towards procurement. The technology being developed is expected to be used by the Army modernization platform and system developers of the world to enable them with years of testing, data and knowledge so they do not have to begin from scratch.
“It is important to recognize that we rely on these established processes to save money, while also allowing the Army’s Materiel Developers to take back ‘gold nuggets’ of design that they will be able to utilize and incorporate down the road,” said Ribail.
During NIE 15.2, there will be an even greater emphasis of working with platform developers and agencies – by bringing them into the NIE process they will help with engineering design work and establish even greater cost efficiencies. The end results expected are contributions to improve upon Army modernization and benefit the Army and Soldiers at large.
The completion of the build signifies that for the time being, System Integration Division has completed their mission for 15.1, although they will be providing support during NIE and will take the lead on de-modification once the test has come to an end.
Engineering branch chief for System Integration Division, Rudy Garcia, who is in charge of vehicle design, describes turning over the fleet of vehicles, the design engineers and build technicians to Capability Package Integration (CPI) for VALEX as a time when he can take a look back at everything that has been accomplished.
“Our team is turned over to CPI to execute VALEX to support troubleshooting and execution of network threads to test the NIE network,” said Garcia. “They also support the NIE execution by assisting the CPI team and the Brigade, but we get them back for de-modification and then of course, the process starts all over again for the next NIE. The vehicle integration activities for every NIE are always challenging but I get excited with the team approach that is established to design and build the numerous NIE vehicles.”
| Date Taken: | 09.04.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 09.04.2014 12:47 |
| Story ID: | 141133 |
| Location: | FORT BLISS, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 193 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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