Government/Military Trends

Collaborative Engineering and Information Sharing at Work on the F-35 JSF Project

Issue Table of Contents

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Project: A Global Engineering Partnership EIA-836: Taking Configuration Management Standards to the Next Level Collaborative Engineering and Information Sharing at Work on the F-35 JSF Project

You might call the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) a three-in-one aircraft built by a three-in-one team. Three versions of the same aircraft are being built by three contractors (Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems) forming an integrated partnership. Lockheed Martin, winner of the contract to build the F-35 JSF, realized that integration was the key to coordinating not only the work of the principal partners, but also that of the hundreds of sub-contractors and suppliers involved.

JSF: A Collaborative Engineering Model

How is Lockheed Martin achieving integration among its many partners and suppliers? Collaborative engineering is one way. Larry Mestad³, airframe engineer at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, describes collaborative engineering as "real-time desktop to desktop integration, where you and I can sit at our computers and look at individually designed parts in context with each other to determine if they fit properly, work together properly, and so on."

Take the example of a Lockheed Martin engineer working on a bulkhead design that's part of the engine bay. He can bring up on his desktop the precise engine model that Pratt & Whitney (the company designing the propulsion system) is providing to test fit the two components. If he detects a problem, the Lockheed Martin engineer can call the Pratt & Whitney engineer to discuss it, then launch a desktop meeting to work it out in real-time. "The way that it used to take place," says Mr. Mestad, "is that sketches, diagrams and prints would be sent back and forth, creating a time lag in the exchange of information."

Collaborative Tools Improve the Work

Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems use a common tool set for CAD (Computer Aided Design), PDM (Product Data Management) and VAS (Visualization Assembly System). The time saved by using common tools in a collaborative environment yields an improvement in quality. "We get a chance to look at more options and we get to optimize the design in the electronic media to a higher degree of refinement before we actually go build the product," says Mr. Mestad.

Collaborating with Information

Collaborating with information tools provides another means for integration on the JSF project. For example, Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems share a desktop-delivered collection of engineering design methods and formulas provided by ESDU™ (Engineering Sciences Data Unit)⁴. The ESDU data being used on the JSF project covers the following topics:

• Aerospace Structures
• Composites
• Fatigue
• Metallic Materials Data Handbook
• Stress and Strength
• Tribology
• Vibration and Acoustic Fatigue

Sharing desktop access to a pre-validated "cookbook" of design methods and formulas speeds the work of engineers trying to design to a performance specification, where the choices can seem endless. It also helps eliminate the need to re-validate the work of internal teams and subcontractors, since ESDU data has already been validated.

With eight countries, three principal partners, 80 major suppliers and hundreds of sub-tier contractors participating in the F-35 JSF project, collaboration isn't merely a nicety, but a necessity.