Project Number: S2870

Project Title: Development of Fitting Aid Tools

Period of Performance: JUN20 – JUN23

General Dynamics Electric Boat (GDEB) currently uses labor-intensive operations and processes to fit steel components (e.g., egg crates, stiffeners, and panels) when creating assemblies. This is a highly manual process that requires the fabrication of temporary fitting attachments, which are welded to the assembly for fit-up and then cut and ground off once fit-up is complete.
The objective of this Center for Naval Metalworking (CNM) project is to eliminate or minimize the need to fabricate, weld, cut, and grind these numerous temporary fitting attachments. Other commercial industries currently use temporary and reusable fitting aids for a variety of manufacturing applications. Discussions with a few vendors have indicated that such existing technologies could be modified for submarine applications. This project will verify that the tools can be modified for unique submarine applications and are robust enough to handle the work required for submarine construction.
This project will utilize state-of-the-art fitting aids to increase throughput in the fabrication of steel components to meet the demands of the submarine platforms currently fabricated at GDEB. This project will research and validate commercial off-the-shelf fitting aids as well as design, prototype, and evaluate custom fitting aids to produce accurate submarine components using Navy-required plate materials.

GDEB expects the results of this project will reduce the man hours required in the fabrication process, improving accuracy and reducing labor/time costs. This CNM project is expected to provide an EROM savings of $395K per VPM hull, and $556K per CLB hull for combined five-year EROM savings of $6.73M across all platforms delivering an ROI of 5.85.

Upon successful and timely completion of the CNM project, the results will be implemented at the GDEB facility. GDEB anticipates implementation in the second quarter of fiscal year 2024.