Like other sectors of the U.S. economy, the defense manufacturing base is evolving. Increasingly, product development is being outsourced to small manufacturing enterprises. In recent years, advances in software technology have led to dramatic improvements in manufacturing productivity. Small manufacturers, however, have typically been reluctant to utilize this new technology, as they often lack the information and resources required to implement it.

The goal of the SEI’s Technology Insertion, Demonstration, and Evaluation (TIDE) Program, initiated in May 2000, is to improve the profitability and efficiency of small manufacturers by helping them understand the business and technical processes of selecting and integrating commercial software technology.

The TIDE Program supports the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2000, helping to "demonstrate the cost savings and efficiency benefits of applying commercially available software and information technology to the manufacturing lines of small defense firms."

Through the TIDE Program, the SEI helps small manufacturers apply advanced software engineering technologies by

>	offering training and workshops in technology adoption, information security, and software selection
>	demonstrating and documenting the return on investment of specific technologies
>	promoting collaboration and communication among subcontractors, suppliers, prime contractors, and original equipment manufacturers
>	providing an unbiased source of information on advanced software, tools, and technologies
>	adapting existing commercial software technology and developing new software capabilities for use by small manufacturers, especially in the areas of computer-based design, engineering, modeling, simulation, and scheduling

The TIDE Program has been championed and supported by U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, who has also supported collaborations between the DoD’s Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Program and Department of Commerce’s manufacturing initiatives.

2002 Accomplishments

TIDE Demonstrates Benefits with Two Manufacturers
To explore and demonstrate how small manufacturers might benefit from collaboration with the TIDE Program, the program partnered with several companies in southwestern Pennsylvania. By implementing advanced engineering, modeling, scheduling, and simulation tools, the SEI enabled those companies to lower costs, increase capabilities, and improve performance, while also putting growth strategies in place.

One partner was the Carco Electronics Company, a manufacturer of multi-axis rotational devices for testing missile-guidance systems, employing 45 people. Its goals were, first, to meet market demand for faster deliveries, reduced costs, and improved product performance, and second, to expand into new markets and products. Carco worked with SEI personnel to achieve its first goal through adoption of advanced 3D computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) tools, and design-process revision. In the first year, Carco realized a cost savings of $135,000, resulting
in the recovery of the initial investment in less than 12 months. The company also realized its second objective: it significantly reduced the level of electronic design and software design effort required for new product development. This was achieved with assistance from the SEI in the adoption of control-system modeling and simulation tools. The company saw dramatic reductions in control-system design costs, design errors, and total engineering cycle times. This project resulted in an additional $150,000 savings for Carco in the first year.

The SEI also worked with the Kurt J. Lesker Company, a manufacturer of ultra-high-vacuum components and systems, employing 230 people. Market pressures were forcing the company to migrate from providing components to providing systems. Existing 2D CAD tools were insufficient for the new systems business. With help from the SEI, the company adopted a 3D CAD tool, which resulted in dramatic reductions in engineering time and reduced rework time in manufacturing. Savings from adoption of the new CAD system are on track to achieve full investment recovery within 12 months.

The Kurt J. Lesker Company had another concern. Because it manufactures a large variety of components, finished inventory is maintained at a minimal level and parts are made to order. Scheduling a large number of unique pieces through a series of shared workstations has resulted in unpredictable bottlenecks, causing unacceptable delivery delays. The SEI is working with Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute to help the company implement a new manufacturing-execution system, as well as new scheduling and simulation software. The collaboration has enabled the SEI to offer business expertise in adapting the software to a small manufacturing firm, and provide guidance in metric definition and selection, data analysis, and return-on-investment calculations.

OCTAVE for Small Businesses Provides
Information-Security Management Practices
Most small manufacturing organizations have implemented information systems and networked computing to improve their productivity. Unfortunately, networked computing can expose small manufacturers to a variety of new risks, affecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their critical information. Most current approaches for evaluating information-security risks focus on the needs of large organizations. A pragmatic approach designed for small organizations does not exist today, and the cost of outsourcing this function to external parties is often too high for those organizations to bear. Through the TIDE Program and the SEI’s Survivable Systems Initiative, the SEI is developing a small-business version of the Operationally Critical Threat, Asset, and Vulnerability EvaluationSM (OCTAVESM) for evaluating and managing information-security risks, known as OCTAVE-S. (For more on OCTAVE, see the Survivable Systems section.)

TIDE Offers Conference and Workshops
The SEI created and held three technology workshops on the topics of managing risk in software technology adoption, achieving successful technology adoption, and engineering for small enterprises. The SEI also held the TIDE Conference in September 2002.