The Fast Program
Building upon PRO-FAST’s proven approach, FAST is a consortium-based, customer-driven program to meet the needs of the stake holders which include the DLA and United States Army as federal investors and the companies and universities as industrial cost share partners. FDMC transformed both the PRO-FAST program and FDMC leadership structure to meet the new, combined needs of the forging industry, DLA, and US Army. The proposed “Portfolios of Value” (POV) aggregates the investments into four integrated thrusts: DLA, FORGE-IT, US Army and Program Management (Page 25). Within these portfolios we propose projects to investigate, develop and deploy technical and enterprise solutions applicable to the DLA, US Army and industry. Each project is supported by detailed project plans using accepted project and process management tools and risk management techniques. FDMC integrated the Department of Defense’s Joint Defense Manufacturing Technology Program (JDMTP) Project Evaluation Criteria, Technology Readiness and Manufacturing Readiness Levels (TRLs and MRLs) to structure, measure and improve the projects individually and the program collectively.
The DLA Portfolio of Value focuses on the DLA technical and enterprise requirements with emphasis on supporting DLA’s core competence of managing supply chains. However, the Army could benefit from these projects as well.
The FORGE-IT Portfolio of Value simultaneously serves the needs of DLA, the Army and industry. This core team of seasoned application engineers provides real time support in addressing forging design and acquisition processes. The FORGE-IT process and its derivative processes for Inventory Control Points (primarily Defense Supply Centers Richmond and Columbus and as required Philadelphia) benefit from FORGE-IT in addressing forging supply chains to proactively and reactively address issues and support the DLA mission.
The United States Army Portfolio of Value focuses on the Army’s technical and enterprise needs with emphasis on technical needs required of large caliber gun sets. Simulation will play a substantial role in the Army portfolio for modeling new materials, large caliber forged component performance, and new processes. Rapid tooling for large dies is important, and will be pursued by Rapid Solidification Processing Tooling to conduct research on the 3rd Generation Machine to build large forging dies (note industry investors are poised to underwrite the capital of the machine).
The Program Management Portfolio of Value – FDMC is actively engaged in project and program management. As demonstrated in the PRO-FAST Program and carried forward in the FAST Program the FDMC Executive Director and his team will take an even greater role in leading FAST. This is especially important since the FAST Program is jointly funded and requires joint decision making, coordination and integration of the $15M of federal and $2.88M of industry investment. Industrial strategic guidance is provided by the FDMC Executive Advisory Board. Tactical support is provided by the Technical Advisory Committee. Additionally, the Program Manager will coordinate the array of special projects and address myriad tasks required of the program.
FDMC proposes to meet the combined needs of the DLA, US Army and industry in a diverse but integrated program we call FAST!
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