SBIR_2016_Year_in_Review-FINAL-WEB-with_links-PACleared

FY 2016
TRANSITION SUCCESSES
In FY 2016 the Air Force Commercialization Readiness Program successfully transitioned 28 STTP and STMPs. To be
considered a transition success, a project must lead to the production and delivery of products, processes, technologies,
or services for sale to or use by the Federal government or commercial markets. Transition successes are providing
significant benefit to the nation’s warfighters in improved performance, new capabilities, increased reliability, and cost
savings. From these 28 we have highlighted four of our top transitions.
• STTP 2009-25, with small business Technical Directions,
Inc., titled “Propulsion System for Joint Direct Attack
Munition-Extended Range (JDAM-ER)” developed a small
low-cost, propulsion turbine needed to extend range of
JDAM weapon to 100+ miles. Additionally, TDI designed
and developed a family of various sized turbojet engines for
defense applications and sold more than 75 to customers
including Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The
engines provide smooth and completely variable thrust in a
low cost and compact configuration for expendable vehicle
applications. They offer easy starting with multi-fuel capability
and require no lubricating oil. The engine exteriors are
cooled by air routed through the engine to utilize low cost
materials with the benefit of a reduced infrared signature.
The highly automated engine control can be integrated with
the vehicle’s flight computer.
• STTP 2012-15, with small business Variation Reduction
Solutions, Inc., titled “Affordable Accurate Robot Guidance
(AARG)” automates drilling and inspection for F-35
assembly at Lockheed Martin, a high accuracy hole cell at
Warner-Robins, and Boeing 777 assembly to achieve precise
tolerances, archiving of data, and $123M savings for the
F-35 program. AARG technology is packaged in several F-35
manufacturing operations, including: 1) Countersink, bore, and
grip length scanning into 5-axis gantries for in-process F-35
wing and forward fuselage drill inspection; and 2) Replacing
the fixed laser line scanner and bore inspection end effectors
in the F-35 Inlet Duct Robotic Drilling with 3D countersink
scanning and “iterative learning” for countersink depth.
• STTP 2013-25, with small business Ridgetop Group Inc.,
titled “Expert Troubleshooting and Repair System, AF093-
208” saves $2M per year per “bad actor” assembly in direct
maintenance for Electronic Warfare, communications, and
navigation systems by reducing No Fault Found (NFF)/
Could Not Duplicate occurrences. The National Center
for Manufacturing Sciences selected the NightHawk(tm)
NFF detection software as one of six finalists for their 2016
Commercial Technologies Maintenance Activities technology
competition. Total savings will exceed $30M over five
years testing just three circuit card assemblies identified at
Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex. Aircraft aging, adverse
environments, and drift of components causes costly and
time-consuming test support problems for the Air Force
Sustainment Center. Traditional methods of detecting NFFs
in critical boards fail to detect numerous soft faults extending
time and cost of troubleshooting and repair, and reducing
aircraft availability. NightHawk’s seamless integration with
diverse test platforms will help minimize both Mean Time To
Repair (MTTR) and maintenance time by quickly identifying
the root cause of difficult-to-find faults in circuit cards
assemblies, shop replaceable units, and modules. This reduces
the number of soft fault NFFs by up to 60 percent and MTTR
by more than 40 percent resulting in maintenance cost savings
and improved aircraft availability on the order of 50 percent.
• STTP 2014-39, with small business Knowledge Based Systems,
Inc. (KBSI), titled “Transformation in Maintenance and
Repair (XFMR)” provides shop-wide visibility of test stand
capabilities. Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center projects a
return on investment of at least 14:1, a 10 to 25 percent
reduction in days Mission Impaired Capability Awaiting Parts
in B-1 Avionics, and a five to 10 percent increase in capacity
turns and throughput based on a detailed part and work
status. The XFMR SBIR technologies provide the essential
elements needed to fill critical gaps. KBSI’s ShopSIM tool
integrates information from multiple systems each day to
picture where each part is, who’s worked on it, what steps
have been completed, who is working on it now, and what
tasks remain to be done - shrinking the time to obtain this
visibility to a few hours. KBSI’s Test Stand Analyzer (TSA)
tool automatically ascertains test stand capabilities and
enables users to manually change status information, such as
when a stand is down for maintenance or returned to full
service after calibration. Shop chiefs use the data to identify
when work needs to be completed and assign resources to
meet critical needs and increase overall throughput.
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