Ensuring Fleet Readiness Efficiency for the Navy FRC East
Background Summary
The US Navy identified multiple operational inefficiencies within their Fleet Readiness Centers in North Carolina. Inventory, inspections, and transfers were managed through manual pen and paper processes. Team members were taking excessive amounts of time to locate and deliver parts, tools, and assets. In some cases, highly valuable assets would be stored in an incorrect location and would not be found again for years. To stay a step ahead, the US Navy was seeking a partner to install and manage IoT devices and RTLS technologies to automatically track where everything is and how well key machinery is operating.
The US Navy has mandated for a complete digitization effort and Shipcom is proud to be one of the key teams delivering that solution. There was interest for a military-grade, hardware agnostic software platform to increase visibility into the Navy’s mission critical data with an objective to drive more efficient operations and improved decision-making.
Site view of MCAS Cherry Point, NC Fleet Readiness Center East
A snapshot of the shop floor processes with Catamaran’s Asset Management platform. Every asset is tracked and every process is digitized.
Shipcom's Solution
Real-Time Asset Management
Facility Health Monitoring
Customizable Alerts
AI / ML and Advanced Analytics
Hardware & Interface Agnostic
Transport Management
Shipcom and the US Navy teamed up to plan, develop and implement an automated asset management solution. Shipcom implemented the Catamaran NextGen™ platform with a Real-Time Locating System (RTLS) that leveraged BLE, GPS, RFID and IoT technologies.
The truth for RTLS systems is that there is no optimal hardware that is suited for all conditions. Some environments are ideal for RFID whereas others are ideal for BLE, for example. That’s why Catamaran NextGen™ was built to ingest and manage data from multiple RTLS sources at once, and interface with military-grade applications. If you have a device that sends out data, it can be incorporated and utilized on the Catamaran NextGen™ platform. This flexibility enables the highest end-to-end visibility for all your assets, anywhere in the facility.
Instead of using Navy shop floor personnel, the implementation allowed the Navy to automate inventories in real-time and provide as much as 90% visibility of critical assets on-demand, 24-7. The Navy is now enjoying the efficiency gains of synchronized web and mobile platforms to perform previously pen and paper tasks on a single device. The platform supports AI-driven dashboards and analytics, enabling superior and more efficient decision making for work center supervisors. And with the integrated RTLS, Shipcom has enabled workflow and location history with a complete record of every action and movement for any tagged asset.
Catamaran’s Asset Management platform gives you complete visibility for hundreds of fixed and moving assets on the shop floor.
Inside Catamaran NextGen | What Your Data Can Do for You
- Deep Dive Analysis. Transform your dataset to suit your needs.
- Automatically identify trends in your dataset to improve processes and safeguard assets. Shipcom’s platform detected that locally maintained assets are six times more likely to need repair again. This process needed to be changed.
- Ask free form questions and have an answer provided by the AI.
-
Machine Health Monitoring
Temperature | Humidity | Air Quality | Power | Water Detection | Current | Vibration | Occupancy -
Transport Tracking
Outdoor Location History | Route Optimization | Acceleration, Velocity, Distance
Implementation Outcomes and KPIs
- The benefits of the Catamaran NextGen™ platform have been remarkable.
- Increased the understanding of the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) lifecycle for each asset enabling improved utilization of equipment.
- Within one week of IoT sensor installation, sensor history data warned of a chiller pump breaking before it broke saving the US Navy thousands in replacement costs.
- Rescued a rotor warehouse's quarterly budget by detecting unauthorized transfer of more than 20 assets from the facility. The assets were recovered within 24 hours saving over $12,000.
- With 90% of assets automatically inventoried, the number of man hours needed to manage inventory decreases by 90%.
- Digitization of manual documents and processes – technology removed the need to have paper signature sheets, inspections, and transfer documents. All paper processes are now digitized on the Catamaran mobile platform.
Above: Zebra mobile RFID handheld. Avoid costly shutdowns in production and save time and resources locating missing assets utilizing the Find Asset module of Catamaran NextGen.
Workflow and Location History empower increased accountability and understanding of the product life cycle.
Tad Sylivant
Logistics Lead
You could start integrating this system into other systems and handle engineering instructions or work orders. This is something that will make us more efficient and it will save us money in the long run, but I think its potential to grow is even more important. There’s unlimited potential here.
Aerospace and Defense
Inventory / Maintenance Management
