Courtesy Photo | PORT HUENEME, Calif.—NSWC PHD Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program summer...... read more read more
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PORT HUENEME, Calif.—Three undergraduate students participating in the summer 2018 Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program (NREIP) at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD) won first place in the Problem-based Initiatives for Powerful Engagement and Learning In Naval Engineering and Science (PIPELINES) design challenge, held Aug. 3 at the Seabee Museum aboard Naval Base Ventura County.
The PIPELINES design challenge is hosted by Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC) in collaboration with the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). The challenge highlights the capstone projects of NREIP summer interns who are sponsored by and working at Navy commands located aboard NBVC. The student teams are paired with Navy mentors and UCSB graduate student mentors during the eight-week program. Seventeen students participated in the challenge, comprising six teams. Participating commands included NSWC PHD, NAVFAC EXWC and Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division. This is the second year of NSWC PHD’s participation in the challenge.
The winning team was comprised of NREIP Interns, Cole Morter, Alessandro Guaresti and James Byrne, all working in NSWC PHD’s Littoral and Strike Warfare Department, Performance & Maintenance Data Analysis Branch (L52) during the program. Their capstone project, “Modernizing Navy Resource Allocation and Distribution Logistics,” was led by Branch Manager Colin Hathaway. Multiple employees from L52 served as mentors, offering guidance and support. Their UCSB mentor was Sharad Shankar, an electrical and computer engineering graduate student.
According to the team, the focus of their project was on creating an alternative software program that the Navy can flexibly use as needs evolve, as well as exploring benefits of methods of transporting spare parts by utilizing autonomous delivery.
“It’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work,” said Byrne, a student at Loyola Marymount University. “Logistics is such a big component of the Navy or any organization that no one really knows about, so being in the heart of it really gives me an appreciation for the scale of the Navy.”
“Our goal with this project was to reduce down times and needless costs of valuable resources for the Navy,” said Guaresti, a computer science major who found out about the program from his calculus instructor. “New technologies need to be utilized, so we began researching supply chain efficiency through modern techniques. We then created a foundational tool for modeling and simulation of the supply chain and autonomous logistics operations by using a modular style of coding.”
“I started researching into autonomous delivery, Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs), and having 3D printers aboard ships or forward-staged locations,” said Mortor. “I also made calculations to determine if it would be more efficient of faster than shipping a part out to a ship.”
“We were trying to explain how big the network is and how we have to make it more efficient,” said Byrne. “We looked at new and future technologies, such as drones and 3D printing and plugged them into the tool that we made, which allows you to take these modern technologies and simulate how it will affect your supply chain.”
The team contacted vendors to work on planning test visits for the UUVs and narrowed down five parts that were theoretically efficient to utilize 3D printing.
“One of our goals of this project was to be flexible to the Navy’s needs so that they can map with Excel or they can make a map of geographical locations that they’re active in and put requirements that will be specific to the Navy’s needs,” continued Byrne. “We had to make sure that it was in a state that it could be added on to, paving the way for the future. Anyone interested in this project can pick up where we left off.”
“We also wanted to show that our program was a foundation for future technologies,” said Guaresti. “You can expand upon this because these are very basic properties that can be added up front and have more complex technologies added later.”
According to the team, the software tool will be used to make more data driven decisions and is a general framework for more specific applications, such as evaluating modern technology, spare part placement, and part delivery optimization. Research into more modern techniques will continue to feed into other autonomous delivery projects.
“This project reflects where we need to be going in five years from now,” said Hathaway. “It’s going to be less about a one-size-fits-all model, and really more about making real-time decisions. We are going to be making a lot of data-driven decisions and we’re going to be more fiscally constrained than ever before.”
“It’s just very impressive,” said L52 Operations Analyst, Jennifer Rodriquez. “In the short time they were here they were able to tie their work into the command’s Strategic Objective [2.0], ‘Accelerate deployment of new capabilities for the fleet.’ Their work is already impacting that.”
“I was grateful for how much free reign we were given with our project,” said Byrne. “We created our own goals, which allowed us to shape the project in ways that we’re passionate about and we were fully supported. We also saw how this would be effective in the mission of L52.”
“All of us [mentors] collectively provided guidance and pointed them in the direction of various resources where they could gain more information on how to apply some of the concepts that they ended up coding,” said L52 Operations Research Analyst Richard Ronson. “Not all of us are computer scientists and we were unfamiliar with the language they used, which was Java, so basically they did all the majority of this simulation all on their own and it was very impressive with how self-proficient they were and that they were able to accomplish such a challenging task in so little time.”
“I thought it would be good exposure for figuring out what I’m going to do for the future,” said Morter, who is studying to become a mechanical engineer. “This was a cool opportunity to work for the Navy and get to do engineering.”
Judges at the competition included representatives from UCSB, Oxnard Community College, NSWC PHD Office of Technology, and NAVFAC EXWC.
Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, NREIP is designed to encourage students to pursue science and engineering careers and engage students with Department of the Navy science and technology. It provides students with a unique opportunity to actively participate in the scientific and engineering process and collaborate with personnel from government and industry. For more information on NREIP, email Naval Internship Programs at: naval_internships@navy.mil.
| Date Taken: | 08.03.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 09.28.2018 19:11 |
| Story ID: | 294943 |
| Location: | PORT HUENEME, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 147 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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