ESD
Professors Receive NASA Funding
for
Interplanetary Supply Chain Management Research
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.
May
12, 2005
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