Photo By 1st Lt. Victoria Schaefer | 210623-N-AA999-001 KEYPORT, Wash. (June 23, 2021) – Leonard Goodman, Naval Undersea...... read more read more
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NUWC Keyport’s Rapid Prototyping and Fabrication Technology shop refused to let COVID-19 ruin their production improvement plans, even if said plans were delayed nearly a year.
In 2020, the team purchased $200,000 of wire cutting and stripping equipment to streamline manufacturing procedures, boost production, and reduce flaws.
Due to COVID-19 health and safety restrictions, the manufacture's factory service representative couldn’t get on site to set up the equipment and conduct training until the end of the 2020 fiscal year.
“Once we got the factory representative on station to conduct the set up and training, we were able to get four shop individuals trained on the programming and operation of the cable fabrication suite,” said Ted Shuey, NUWC Keyport Applied Electronics-Mechanical Technology branch head. “(We’re) always looking to evaluate work processes and the equipment used to perform them. It was clear there was a lot of time and effort going into the setup portion of building wiring harnesses.”
In May 2021, the team received their first production job that would put the new equipment to the test. It took less than a day to create the programs needed to run the job. With that out of the way, the equipment measured, cut, and stripped more than 2,000 pieces of wire in a week.
According to Shuey, the process would’ve taken about a month before the new equipment arrived. Most of the wire is Teflon wrapped with additional shielding inside, which is notoriously tough to work with due to the uneven nature of the wire.
Despite the continuous difficultly in cutting and evenly separating the wire, the team utilized the laser wire stripper and shield processing machine’s advanced technology to defeat two of the most challenging aspects of prepping wire for harness manufacturing.
“Shop personnel are excited to automate more of these redundant tasks,” Shuey said.
There weren’t any miss-cuts or wrong length strips needing correction after the installation, as noted by the team. This discovery not only sped up the overall process, it improved the quality of the overall product. Over the course of the job, Rapid Prototyping and Fabrication saved about 800 man hours – nearly $185,000 – in labor savings, virtually covering the entire investment in one project.
The upgrades don’t just benefit the customer. Technicians are also pleased with the enhanced capabilities.
“Not only are we saving money for the tax payer while providing faster service to our customers, technicians won’t need to spend time on these mundane tasks that can lead to repetitive injuries,” Shuey said.
“The team works on production and innovation,” he added. “From projects like the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet, to supporting the requirements of its allies, costs are down, technicians are excelling, and Keyport is leading the way.”
About Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Keyport
NUWC Keyport provides advanced technical capabilities for test and evaluation, in-service engineering, maintenance and industrial base support, fleet material readiness, and obsolescence management for undersea warfare to expand America’s undersea dominance.
| Date Taken: | 07.16.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 07.16.2021 17:18 |
| Story ID: | 401114 |
| Location: | KEYPORT, WASHINGTON, US |
| Hometown: | KEYPORT, WASHINGTON, US |
| Hometown: | MILLINGTON, TENNESSEE, US |
| Hometown: | NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND, US |
| Hometown: | WASHINGTON NAVY YARD, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, US |
| Web Views: | 109 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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