3479. Managing and Controlling Weight and Center of Gravity for Combat Ground Vehicle Development Programs

Paper

Abstract

BAE Systems Inc. is the U.S, subsidiary ofBAE Systems pIc, an intcmational company engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced defense and aerospace systems in the air, on land, at sea and in space. US Combat Systems, one of BAE Systems Inc.’s Land & Armaments lines of business is a leader in designing, rapidly prototyping and manufacturing protected fighting vehicle plattbrms and survivability solutions that support and protect the current and future forces. Improving and increasing military transformation capabilities, that is increasing the speed with which the military forces deploy and engage by reducing the logistics tail is directly related to the successes of managing and controlling the development and fielded weight of combat ground vehicles. This paper discusses methods of controlling and managing weight of complex design combat vehicle solutions tbr the customer that has various design constraints such as high level of component commonality, low cost, high reliability, speed to market, and increased performance capabilities over the current force systems. The mass properties control and management methods presented in this paper focus on developing an accurate estimate, reconciling this estimate with the customer’s requirements, advocating a program mass properties and control plan, establishing and enforcing weight allocations/targets, monitoring and mitigating development weight, organizing and presenting data. The final conclusions of this paper will include lessons learned based on implementation ofthese methods.