Zweave’s Success Story: The United States Army

Goal

  • Improved Product Development Lifecycle time
  • Improved collaborative publishing process for technical packs (military specifications)
  • Centralized management of Product Design and engineering data

Initiatives

  • Field a central PLM System for use by research, development, engineering, acquisition and logistics personnel across 3 separate Army organizations
  • Configure PLM system in alignment with evolving Army enterprise architecture framework

Implementation Time

  • Multi-year project

Implementation Details

  • Implementation started with SaaS model, moved to managed service, going to on-site managed service next.
  • Implementation now includes:
    • Computer and network hardware sourcing, installation, configuration and support
    • Product portfolio hierarchy configuration
    • Product sizing and POM configuration
    • Project management, requirement traceability, document assembly
  • Customization
    • Project management, requirements traceability, document assembly, user security, roles, team workspaces, acquisition lifecycle workflow, external database integration

The U.S. Army Ergonomics and Human Factors Directorate  awarded a Phase III SBIR contract to Zweave.  This contract is to customize the Ergonomics Research System developed for the Air Force Phase II project.  Zweave has interviewed Army Subject Matter Experts in biomechanics, ergonomics, biomedical, and human factors research areas to expand the solution to include Army data and reports and collaboration requirements.  Upon the successful completion of this project, Zweave expects to receive additional contract awards expanding the integration of human factors and ergonomics with the defense acquisition lifecycle for military clothing and individual equipment (CIE).

The U.S. Army Individual Protection Directorate along with the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense awarded Zweave a Phase II Plus SBIR contract extension to the Navy Phase II SBIR project.   This $500,000 contract continued the development of a prototype configuration management application for clothing and individual equipment. Zweave will manage and support the product development data and defense acquisition lifecycle of the Army combat uniform (ACU) within the system. In Q1 of 2007, the Army will be implementing Spec Manager™ as well as FitCOMM™ for approximately 50 users.