ESD
Professors Receive NASA Funding
for
Interplanetary Supply Chain Management
Research
May
12, 2005
The
National Aeronautics & Astronautics
Administration (NASA) has awarded
two ESD professors funding to conduct
research to support its new vision
for human
and robotic space exploration.
David
Simchi-Levi, Professor of Civil
and Environmental Engineering and
Engineering Systems and Olivier
de Weck, Robert N. Noyce Career
Development Assistant Professor of
Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering
Systems will lead the "Interplanetary
Supply Chain Management and Logistics
Architectures" project, in partnership
with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Payload Systems Inc. and United Space
Alliance, LLC. Its purpose is to create
a framework for analysis and strategic
planning of the future interplanetary
supply chain.
The
interplanetary supply chain encompasses
the transfer of goods and associated
information from terrestrial suppliers
to launch sites, the integration of
payloads onto launch vehicles and
launch to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), the
in-space transfer of payloads from
LEO to the Moon and Mars as well as
planetary surface logistics.
Although
there are a vast number of scientific
principles and techniques that have
been developed since World-War-II
to improve the effectiveness and efficiency
of supply chain management (SCM) in
the private and military sectors on
Earth, the potential benefits of this
body-of-knowledge are currently only
poorly understood in the context of
space exploration.
“Sustainable
space exploration is impossible without
appropriate supply chain management,”
said Simchi-Levi. “Unlike Apollo,
future exploration will have to rely
on a complex supply network on the
ground AND in space. The primary goal
of this project is to develop a comprehensive
SCM framework and planning tool for
space-logistics.
An
integrated space-logistics framework
will be developed in four phases.
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In
the initial phase, the team will identify
terrestrial supply chain analogies
by investigating and contrasting SCM
lessons learned in three areas. These
include major industries specializing
in low-quantity, capital-intensive
products; long-range military operations
such as naval-submarine logistics;
and supply chains for operations in
remote environments, such as the Haughton-Mars-Project
base in the high Canadian
Arctic at 75N 90W. This will categorize
the tradeoffs between transportation
modes in terms of unit cost, time
and availability and the bulk-density
and criticality of goods to be transported.
Decision trees and strategies for
separation of human/cargo, consumables,
and high-value-spares using different
transportation modes (e.g. slow-electrical-spiral
vs. fast-chemical-transfers) will
be developed. The team will also identify
where terrestrial logistics analogies
break down when applied to space exploration.
The
next phase will involve space logistics
network analysis, during which the
team will build an integrated network
model of space logistics, where the
nodes are Earth-Moon-Mars-orbits and
expected landing-exploration sites.
The arcs will represent discrete cargo
flows between the nodes. Conceptually,
this is similar to networks of major
enterprises on Earth, for which extensive
analysis methods exist. One significant
difference is that the nodal-motion
in space creates time and energy dependencies
in the network that do not exist on
Earth. This is both a practical challenge
as well as an academic research opportunity.
The
third phase will explore demand-supply
modeling with the element of uncertainty.
Major uncertainties in supply and
demand of the space-logistics-network
will be quantified. Examples include
variations in demand, cargo-mix, and
transportation costs, as well as unplanned
supply-line interruptions, plus storage
issues, such as degradation, obsolescence,
and boil-off of cryogenic gases over
time. This data will be used to populate
the supply chain network model in
order to run different logistics scenarios,
starting with Crew Exploration Vehicle
(CEV) development and test flights
in 2008 (Spiral 1)-.
The
final phase will leverage the previous
models and combine them with existing
space logistics models to develop
an interplanetary supply chain architecture
and corresponding trade studies. “The
largest challenge will be to estimate
realistic types, amounts and timing
of cargo flows in the interplanetary-supply
chain, in the absence of fully developed
exploration mission plans,”
noted de Weck.
”This
proposal would not have come about
but for the integrating effect of
the Engineering System Division that
is bringing together all kinds of
engineers with social scientists and
management specialists,” noted
Professor Dan Hastings, the Division’s
Director. “Indeed, the Interplanetary
Supply chain represents a complex
network that demands interdisciplinary
research combining technical and economic
analyses. Important challenges in
this project include managing risk,
optimizing system architecture, and
developing a sustainable supply chain,
aspects that all are characteristics
of the type of engineering systems
challenges that ESD faculty address.”
The
research is being conducted in coordination
with the Department of Aeronautics
& Astronautics (AA) and the Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering
(CEE). The project has a total budget
of $3.8 million and is scheduled for
a period of two years from 2005-2007.
A number of masters and doctoral level
students from ESD, AA and CEE are
expected to participate. The project
was selected in December 2004 as one
of 70 among 3500 entries into NASA’s
extramural Broad Agency Announcement
(BAA) for Human and Robotic Technologies.
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