Common Parts Catalog 
SYNOPSIS
The electronic common parts catalog implemented with NSRP funds is delivering increased speed and accuracy in information retrieval, reductions in parts through standardization, and data reuse by providing more visibility and timely access to the data. The multi-yard sharing of part and document data contains each shipyard's part and document data converted in accordance with one set of agreed to standards. A robust search capability eliminates a new generation of duplicate part numbers for components already identified in the Catalog.

The catalog has addressed supply chain issues of non-standard part requirements from yard to yard, and facilitates leveraging small quantity orders (in Relation to total market) not fulfilling minimum production runs. Fleet maintenance issues addressed include decreased variety of parts to maintain the fleet (i.e. more standard) and potential visibility of design and/or construction yard inventoried material.

COMNAVSEA interest stimulated the CPC initiative. In an April 2003 letter, he requested the NSRP Executive Control Board to..."consider a focused effort within the NSRP to achieve a significant change in the way the shipbuilding industry selects parts and components for use in Navy ships, aircraft carriers and submarines. I ask that you determine how best to deploy an approach that uses a "common parts catalog" in the selection of the hundreds of component parts used in the construction and repair of Navy ships. I believe this type of approach has, in limited use, already saved scarce SCN dollars on some hulls and that is has potential to reduce both new construction costs and support costs. A number of shipbuilders represented on the ECB are considering adopting a "common parts catalog." This letter requests the ECB consider how best to finalize and deploy this concept to as many of the participating shipyards as possible."

Implementation - The catalog entered production use in mid-2004 at Bath Iron Works, Electric Boat, and Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and immediately began providing return on the Navy's investment. Implementation at other yards will occur later in 2004 and beyond on a case basis. This fast response is possible due to past work funded through NSRP, the shipyard's internal R&D accounts, and ONR funds provided in cooperation with NSRP.

Savings to Date - None, since the project began in 2003. Projections of annual savings are in the tens of millions.


PROBLEM DIMENSIONS
The shipyard legacy part catalog applications were built using older mainframe technologies, but are nonetheless critical to the enterprise. These applications have been and still are an integral part of the Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) process in each shipyard. However, these legacy part catalog systems present, notable weaknesses that include:

NSRP APPROACH
Success is dependent on enterprise-wide consensus on data architecture and interface protocols. EB, BIW and NGSS (Ingalls and Avondale) have teamed since 1999 to develop a Common Parts Catalog while working closely with NSRP projects (ISE and Material Standards) on interoperability aspects. The team has now completed full scale implementation at EB, BIW and both NGSS locations to provide solutions to the issues of non-existent or inefficient part searches, lack of established part data standards (and attendance reuse advantages), inability to support Part Standardization of IPDE Programs, duplicate or non-standard parts proliferation, and absence of inter-shipyard part commonality/equivalency. The specific process improvements addressed are part commonality/equivalency, part data configuration management, flexible part search, and enabling of part standardization. It was realized that establishing a common part repository (i.e. a Common Parts Catalog) that had a robust search engine, that was shared between multiple shipyards, and that was supported by improved "best practice" business processes would directly support present and future Integrated Product Data Environment initiatives. The yards pursued the selection of COTS Component and Supplier Management system to implement the common catalog.

The shipyards are teamed under NSRP to develop this collaborative systems, and adopt industry best practices as well as innovations in a parts management program to obtain increased performance in the areas of parts commonality/equivalency, part data configuration, and part standardization. These 'best practice' models have been incorporated into the shipyards' present business processes when appropriate to create a process that supports this inter-shipyard collaboration. The CPC design is scalable and flexible, allowing for the growth of data, users and user sites. It has been made flexible enough to easily interface with other applications such as PDM systems and possibly links to suppliers' on-line catalogs. Design considerations also allow for the future inclusion of other shipyards.

An NSRP technical working group assessed what's been done, what remains, and options to deploy the Common Parts Catalog in first and second tier private yards, plus the initial steps to engage Naval yards and logistics commands. The group agreed that the best approach would be 3 separate task teams working closely together. The Navy element is shown for completeness - but NSRP is not managing Navy efforts. The reason for 3 teams is that the task set has some significant differences.

Task 1: Electric Boat, Bath Iron Works and Northrop Grumman Ship Systems pilot testing of a 1st tier shipyard, high-end, tightly integrated functionalities between the four yards to reduce part proliferation in future ship design and overhaul contracts, with a secondary benefit to facilitate virtual inventory visibility. Much has already been done outside NSRP, but their approach failed due to unanticipated scalability issues. Full-scale testing, validation and software/hardware refinement are required prior to risking its use in production on shipyard contracts. The previous shipyard-funded phases have resulted in 80% of the parts conforming to the data element dictionary format, and the loading parts data into the system. Deliverables include procedure documentation, part data standards, part configuration management procedures, data dictionary / parts schema / data model architecture, training and education materials and an industry/Navy demonstration. The deliverables will make this capability deployable by other yards. 

Task 2: Northrop Grumman Newport News and NASSCO study on concept viability and issues for their yards and Navy projects. Their assessment will be partially based on the outcome of Task 1 testing and risk reduction. NGNN and NASSCO have recently developed systems (SAP and Common Item Database, respectively) which would require a different integration path, and Northrop Grumman Newport News is also working within the Northrop Grumman framework for interoperability with Northrop Grumman Ship Systems. Both have licenses from i2 - the COT's product on which the CPC1 team's tools are built.

Task 3: Second tier yard-led development of a subscription-based Conops and system architecture suited to repair/logistics-centric users. Also partially based on outcome of Task 1 testing and risk reduction. The second tier efforts (CPC2) are expected to be an intentional subset of the full Navy functionality and will most likely want a subscription/transaction model, as opposed to the 1st tier tight integration. This work leverages a 2nd tier Material Identification and Procurement Systems (MIDAPS) project at Bender that was funded through ONR small business programs.

Task 4: Interoperability interfaces will enable other future deployers (other private yards, Navy yards, NAVSUP, fleet maintenance activities) to adapt interfaces for their IT systems. NAVSEA and NAVICP conducted a CPC meeting on 11 March 2004 among Navy and Industry representatives. The purpose was to gain an enterprise-wide assessment of CPC applicability to Navy logistics/material support processes and to identify possible modes of data interconnectivity. For additional information, download Ron Nason's article for the Defense Standardization Program Journal.

The following diagram summarizes the 4 tasks and includes the development of a CPC interface specification that is being developed under another NSRP project (Integrated Shipbuilding Environment):



The tasks can be viewed as moving a system being developed as an R&D project from design to full-scale testing, validation, and enterprise-wide implementation readiness. A key unknown to be resolved during the testing activities is the actual hardware requirement to accommodate the implementation and maintenance of the CPC data at the first 4 pilot shipyards. No data or ship parts will be procured with NSRP funds.

The tasks do not focus on the needs of anyone shipyard. Task 1 reflects the specific requirement of 4 major shipyards with synergies from two other NSRP projects that represented three additional shipyards. Over the past few years, interest in utilization of common part data from additional shipyards, shipyard suppliers, and our customer clearly identifies this proposed NSRP project as a Shipbuilding Enterprise requirement.

The prime objective of the Task 1 is to interface with existing cataloging "best practices", support continuous process improvements and provide both short and long term cost savings opportunities. These "best practices" are categorized as part data standards, part commonality/equivalency and part data configuration management. Absent full-scale testing, shipyards are unwilling to risk the significant disruption in design and engineering activities on existing contracts.

Applicability extends to all commercial and military segments of the U.S. shipbuilding and repair industry. The part definition, relationship and value standards developed will help facilitate reuse of material and design data. A deployed CPC at the three participating shipyards will facilitate future interoperability efforts with other shipbuilding enterprise catalog system applications to send and receive standard part data between shipyards, suppliers and our customer.

BUSINESS CASE/BENEFITS
The completion of these tasks has not only provided a functioning parts catalog across three shipyards but also facilitate solutions to issues that effect the shipbuilding enterprise. The issues of non-existent or inefficient parts searches, no inter-shipyard part commonality/equivalency, no established part data standards facilitating reuse advantages, inability to support Part Standardization or IPDE Programs, and duplicate or non-standard part proliferation, will be solved. Our supply chain issues of non-standard part requirements from shipyard to shipyard and small quantity orders in relation to total market not fulfilling minimum production runs can be better addressed. And our customer, the U.S. Navy, has fleet maintenance issues that can be facilitated such as decreased variety of parts to maintain the fleet, no visibility in design or construction yards inventory, inability to electronically integrate with shipyard catalog systems.

The shipyards are working together to develop this collaborative system and adopt industry best practices as well as innovations in a parts management program to obtain increased performance. The specific business and process improvements that have been addressed by this project are inter-shipyard part commonality/equivalency, part data configuration management, and standard part data reuse. These improvements coupled with the software functionality are providing both significant individual gains and a very real step toward inter-shipyard efficiencies desired by the Navy through its emphasis on the "one-shipyard" concept to the U.S. shipbuilding and repair enterprise.

The strategy and opportunity is to implement a multi-shipyard program which will allow, the participating shipyards to easily and effectively share part and document data to facilitate increased speed and accuracy in information retrieval and reductions in parts through standardization and data reuse. This team will deploy the technology that will increase the productivity by providing more visibility and timely access to the data. The real opportunity exists in extending a functional and proven deployment to other commercial and military partners.

Production CPC is providing the participating shipyards and the shipbuilding enterprise with immediate functionality and enable future opportunities. The immediate functionality provided by CPC includes:

Beyond the (above listed) immediate advantages, there are future opportunities derived from a functioning inter-shipyard catalog function that include:

IMPLEMENTATIONS
Implementation is complete at EB, BIW, NGSS. NASSCO has decided to join CPC in 2005 with submittal of an NSRP project to facilitate the implementation. NGNN has decided to postpone joining CPC to a later date. Bender Shipbuilding & Repair is leading a task to develop CPC capability at the 2nd tier yards by the first quarter summer of 2005. The following figures provide screen shots of the system to illustrate some aspects of the functionality.



Figure 1:Part Equivalency - Provides the capability to identify interchangeability links within and between CPC yards, non-CPC yard, vendor and government part numbers. This capability will identify interchangeable parts to facilitate material standardization, availability and procurement across the shipbuilding and repair enterprise.
 


Figure 2: The multiple NSN to shipyard part number relationships can support new construction, repair and maintenance material availability.




 Figure 3: Part Product Structure - Provides capability to identify component's piece parts with related criteria. Designed for extensibility (e.g. DLA).


Figure 4: Cross Reference Parts to Mil-Docs, Commercial Specs, Vendor drawings, etc.




Last Update: 4/28/08