SCRA-led Project Wins Defense Manufacturing Achievement Award

CHARLESTON, S.C. - (BUSINESS WIRE) - SCRA Applied R&D consortium PDES, Inc. today announced that its Customer/Supplier Interoperability during Collaborative Design (CSI) project has won the 2012 Defense Manufacturing Achievement Award. The CSI project, led by SCRA, is sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the OSD Defense Manufacturing Science & Technology Program (DMS&T).

Presented at the recent Defense Manufacturing Conference (DMC 2012) in Orlando, FL, the award is sponsored by the Joint Defense Manufacturing Technology Panel (JDMTP) to recognize and honor those individuals from government and the private sector most responsible for outstanding technical accomplishments that further the achievement of the vision of the Department of Defense (DoD) Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Program.

The Customer Supplier Interoperability (CSI) program offers solutions to address massive engineering inefficiencies associated with technical data exchanges in defense supply chains. Through the automation of manual tasks, CAD validation and a toolset to advance current exchanges, CSI paves the path toward model-based definition (MBD) for the defense industrial base. Through side-by-side comparisons with current best practices, CSI technologies generate projected cost savings of ~$22M/year for 3 CSI manufacturers & ~$50M/year when fully adopted by all supply chain members in a large defense acquisition program. With major programs exceeding 20 years in duration, this equates to over $1 billion in savings.