NASA Engineering Network: A Step Towards Technical Excellence

1
NASA Engineering Network A Step Towards
Technical Excellence

• Daniel M. Schumacher, PhD/NASA HQ
• Manson Yew/NASA JPL
• September 17, 2006

2
Overview

• The NASA Engineering Network (NEN) will
• Assist NASA in leadership as a competitive
  engineering and knowledge sharing organization
• Rearchitect the way in which engineers share
  knowledge
• Provide metasearch to find key knowledge across
  NASA and its partners
• Connect engineers to experts and expertise
• Elicit and capture the tacit knowledge of our
  experts
• Support NASA Technical Fellows Program
• Design ways that provide simple access to
  distributed information

3
Leverage Vast Resources
Sphere of Information (NASA Wide)
Augmenting Communication
Sphere of Information (Project/Center)
Over 10,000 Talented Engineers
4
What Makes Up NEN?

• A System of Tools and Processes

NEN Portal
Content Management System
Collaborative Tools
Metasearch
Expertise Location Manual to Automated
Lessons Learned, Etc.
Communities Of Practice, Etc.
Search Across Multiple Databases
Work History, Directory Info, Skills
5
Benchmarking

• Formal benchmarking meetings conducted with the
  organizations noted below have led to this
  architecture

The Aerospace Corporation Department of Commerce
US Army Rand Corporation
MITRE EPRI
Lockheed Martin Space Systems JHU/Applied Physics Lab
Raytheon Department of Homeland Security
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Department of Energy
Intel Procter and Gamble
Boeing Canoga Park Rolls Royce Aerospace
Harvard University Learning Innovations Laboratory Ball Aerospace
Australian Taxation Office
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Benchmark Return on Investment Successes

• Challenges
• Key engineers are retiring with expertise that
  no one else has
• Existing expertise directory was inadequate and
  out of date

My previous mentors already retired. I carried
whatever tribal knowledge they passed on to me. I
usually get repeated questions about Pressure
Assisted Seals, Spiralock nuts, and Stretch Bolts
used on SSME, some of them can only be answered
by interpreting the intent of my mentors. I use
AskMe to develop an FAQ list which knowledge
seekers can access. User at Boeing
September 2002Pilot launched in Boeing
Rocketdynes Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME)
group (500 users)
April 2003Launch to all of Canoga Park
December 2002Pilot proved successful. Decision
made to roll out to all of Rocketdyne (5000 users)

• Results
• 90 of users felt application was critical to
  their jobs and should be deployed enterprise-wide
• Estimated 1.8M yearly return from Canoga Park
  deployment
• Now Pratt and Whitney

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Use Case Scenarios

• 1. Technical Community
• Disseminate knowledge
• Facilitate the review of documents and standards
• Facilitate sharing across Centers and disciplines
• Collect and evaluate feedback from discipline
  community
• Mentor and foster discipline
• 2. NASA engineer seeking solutions and decision
  support detail

Ex Field Programmable Gated Arrays
NEN Portal
Content Management System
Collaborative Tools
Metasearch
Expertise Location Manual to Automated
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Use Case Scenarios (continued)

• 3. NASA engineer capturing and sharing
  information
• Existing mechanisms for capture
• Capturing of tacit and informal knowledge (FAQs
  and discussions)
• Promotion of documents to official lessons
  learned and technical reports
• 4. NASA engineer learning new skills
• Tools to enable informal, Socratic method of
  learning new skills (engineering discipline
  portals and collaborative tools)
• Disseminating engineering resources
• 5. NASA policy makers embedding knowledge into
  processes facilitates OCE and Center
  Engineering policy

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NEN Distributed Information Portal
Discussions and QA
Saved searches and subscriptions
Integration to document management
Action item tracking
Metasearch Capability
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LLIS Collection Transition Operational
Lessons Learned keeps autonomy
Searchable entity of NEN and communities
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Example of Search for FPGA NEN Metasearch
By Collection/Year/ Center/Topics
NEPP
PRACA
Relevance
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Current Data Sources Available

• Lessons Learned
• PRACA databases
• NEPP (NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging)
• NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
• Orbital Space Plane Lessons Learned
• Plan to phase in additional databases over time,
  e.g. MAPTIS
• Long term plan is presently 40 plus databases

13
Implementation (cont)

• Phased Implementation of Searches on NASA
  Engineering Repositories

First group (3.5 months) InsideNASA
Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Lessons Learned
PBMA Incident Report Information System (IRIS)
MAPTIS webPCASS KSC Shuttle PRACA MSFC
Shuttle PRACA JSC Shuttle Assurance PRACA JPL
Rules! Design Principles and Flight Project
Practices JPL Problem/Failure Reporting System
Hazardous Materials Management System Goddard
Problem Reporting System Goddard Ground Systems
Knowledge Base KSC Engineering Knowledge Base
ISS Risk Management Application ISS Space
Flight Awareness Lessons Learned NASA Technical
Standards NESC SPRT Final Reports and
Assessments (in PBMA) SMO Independent
Assessments Photo Library Database System NASA
Technical Standards
Second group (by end of FY2007) JSC Lessons
Learned JSC Corrective/Preventive Action Request
MSFC EDMS GRC EDMS POLARIS NODIS Goddard
Knowledge Library LaRC Non-Conformance Failure
Reporting System LaRC Risk Management System
ePORT (electronic Project OnLine Risk Tool) SSC
Rockettest SOLAR GALAXIE (NASA Library
Information System) NEEIS (NASA Education
Evaluation and Information System) MSFC STIN
WSTF DACS Ames STS End of Mission Database
Nonconformance Failure Reporting System (NFR)
Russian Lessons Learned Shuttle-MIR Lessons
Learned NESC Academy
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Engineering Communities of Practice

• Alpha Group
• Nondestructive Evaluation
• Structures
• Thermal and Fluids
• Systems Engineering
• Project Management
• Software
• Engineering Management Board
• Lesson Learned
• Beta Group
• Aerodynamics
• Guidance, Navigation, and Control
• Materials and Processes
• Propulsion
• Electrical Power

• Gamma Group
• Mechanical
• Flight Mechanics
• Loads and Dynamics
• Space Environment
• Avionics/EEE Parts
• Life Support
• Delta Group
• Communications/Tracking
• Robotic Operations
• Statistical Sciences
• Systems Safety Engineering
• Human Factors

NEN communities will not require invitation or
registration
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CoP - Discussion Board Example

• EEE Parts  Discussion Board Thermal Engineering
  Thermal Testing Standards? Topics Forums
  Main ViewThermal Testing Standards? 
  Reply   Author  New T. Engineer Posted 1/4/2005
  84530 PM
• I am a new thermal engineer tasked with setting
  up a thermal test for a Power Distribution Box on
  a space communications satellite. The Power
  Distribution Box is to be powered on during all
  phases of the flight. There are thermal control
  heaters on board designed to keep the box
  electronics within their design operating
  temperatures. What type of thermal test, the test
  limits and durations should I be testing to so
  that I can best correlate the test results with
  my thermal model? Are there any Thermal Testing
  Standards that I should be following?ReThermal
  Testing Standards?  Reply   Author  Sub M.
  Expert  Posted 1/4/2005 84857 PM
• There are several types of thermal tests for
  component and system level designs. There is
  Developmental Testing which characterizes
  parameters that are difficult to quantify
  analytically and demonstrates the
  performance/behavior of the design. The Assembly
  Protoflight/Qualification or Flight Acceptance
  testing demonstrates inspection hardware
  performance beyond allowable flight temperature
  ranges to uncover design or workmanship defects.
  The System or Assembly Level Thermal Balance
  Tests are performed to validate a thermal design.
  It demonstrates functionality at the expected
  temperatures so that the thermal model can be
  correlated to the test data. Continued

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System Demonstration

• This system is designed to meet the needs of many
  individuals and communities
• Demonstration will show support to a wide range
  of issues

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Summary

• NEN is designed to meet multiple stakeholders
  requirements will continue to refine
• Builds on successful implementation and shared
  infrastructure
• Addresses key concerns from review boards and
  outside audits
• Establishes a framework for engineering to
  transform the transfer of knowledge and
  information

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Backups
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NASA Corporate Knowledge Loss
Knowledge Capture and Management - Key To
Ensuring Flight Safety and Mission Success John
L. Goodman United Space Alliance, LLC, Houston,
TX 77058
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NEPP Collection
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NTRS Collection
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Showing Search Results for All Three Systems
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Solve Issues More Quickly to Increase
Productivity
Key Issue Engineers working on complex problems
need access to specialized expertise to reduce
time to solve problems, make decisions, take
action and move their projects forward
Example Chipset Performance Modeling
Engineer facing critical problem in Chipset
Performance Modeling program

• Results
• Materials groups alone saved 2.2M in first year
  through productivity gains
• Achieved payback within 9 months

gets likely root cause for crash from colleague
with expertise
and solves the problem in less time to complete
the project earlier
Intel is in process of deploying system across
the enterprise
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Connect People to Foster Outside the Box
Thinking
Key Issue PG has a single goal to drive bigger
innovations to market faster. The key to faster
growth is our unique ability to connect expertise
from one area of the business to create new ideas
in another.

• PG saved over 60 workyears of effort in 2003
  alone from solutions delivered on AskMe
• PG has consistently proven value and expanded
  deployment
• Jun 2001 500 users
• Apr 2002 2,000 users
• Jun 2003 10,000 users
• Jun 2004 15,000 users
• Over 600 new business critical problems are
  solved each month
• Over 2500 solutions are re-used each month

Examples of products that resulted from cross
group technology collaboration that drove PG to
deploy AskMe
Health Wellness
Personal Beauty
Fabric Homecare
Crest Whitestrips
Febreze
Dryel