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Inventory Management System (SIMS) consists of series of integrated support programs providing supply support for both Shuttle program and Kennedy Space Center base opeations SIMS controls all supply activities and requirements from single point. Programs written in COBOL.
Kennedy Inventory Management System, KIMS, geared to needs of facility in transition from research and development to manufacturing. Operated jointly by several contractors at Kennedy Space Center, KIMS designed to reduce cost and increase efficiency of fabrication and maintenance of spaceflight hardware.
Bar-coding, radio-frequency, and voice-operated systems selected. Report discusses study of state-of-the-art in automated collection of data for management of large inventories. Study included comprehensive search of literature on data collection and inventory management, visits to existing automated inventory systems, and tours of selected supply and transportation facilities at Kennedy Space Center. Information collected analyzed in view of needs of conceptual inventory-management systems for Kennedy Space Center and for manned space station and other future space projects.
To help assure mission success for long-duration exploration activities, NASA is actively pursuing wireless technologies that promote situational awareness and autonomy. Wireless technologies are typically extensible, offer freedom from wire tethers, readily support redundancy, offer potential for decreased wire weight, and can represent dissimilar implementation for increased reliability. In addition, wireless technologies can enable additional situational awareness that otherwise would be infeasible. For example, addition of wired sensors, the need for which might not have been apparent at the outset of a program, night be extremely costly due in part to the necessary routing of cables through the vehicle. RFID, or radio frequency identification, is a wireless technology with the potential for significant savings and increased reliability and safety in space operations. Perhaps the most obvious savings relate to the application of inventory management. A fully automated inventory management system is highly desirable for long-term sustaining operations in space environments. This assertion is evidenced by inventory activities on the International Space Station, which represents the most extensive inventory tracking experience base in the history of space operations. In the short tern, handheld RFID readers offer substantial savings owing to reduced crew time for inventory audits. Over the long term, a combination of improved RFID technology and operational concepts modified to fully utilize the technology should result in space based inventory management that is highly reliable and requires very little crew time. In addition to inventory management, RFID is likely to find space applications in real-time location and tracking systems. These could vary from coarse-resolution RFID portals to the high resolution afforded by ultra-wideband (UWB) RFID. Longer range RFID technologies that leverage passive surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices are being investigated to track assets on a lunar or planetary surface.
This NASA Materials Inventory Management Manual (NHB 4100.1) is issued pursuant to Section 203(c)(1) of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 (42 USC 2473). It sets forth policy, performance standards, and procedures governing the acquisition, management and use of materials. This Manual is effective upon receipt.
This viewgraph presentation describes the utilization of automated space-based inventory management through handheld RFID readers and BioNet Middleware. The contents include: 1) Space-Based INventory Management; 2) Real-Time RFID Location and Tracking; 3) Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) RFID; and 4) BioNet Middleware.
Known as MRO for Maintenance, Repair and Operating supplies, Tropicana Products, Inc.'s automated inventory management system is an adaptation of the Shuttle Inventory Management System (SIMS) developed by NASA to assure adequate supply of every item used in support of the Space Shuttle. The Tropicana version monitors inventory control, purchasing receiving and departmental costs for eight major areas of the company's operation.
The Flight Hardware Support Request System (FHSRS) is a computer program that relieves engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) of most of the non-engineering administrative burden of managing an inventory of flight hardware. The FHSRS can also be adapted to perform similar functions for other organizations. The FHSRS affords a combination of capabilities, including those formerly provided by three separate programs in purchasing, inventorying, and inspecting hardware. The FHSRS provides a Web-based interface with a server computer that supports a relational database of inventory; electronic routing of requests and approvals; and electronic documentation from initial request through implementation of quality criteria, acquisition, receipt, inspection, storage, and final issue of flight materials and components. The database lists both hardware acquired for current projects and residual hardware from previous projects. The increased visibility of residual flight components provided by the FHSRS has dramatically improved the re-utilization of materials in lieu of new procurements, resulting in a cost savings of over $1.7 million. The FHSRS includes subprograms for manipulating the data in the database, informing of the status of a request or an item of hardware, and searching the database on any physical or other technical characteristic of a component or material. The software structure forces normalization of the data to facilitate inquiries and searches for which users have entered mixed or inconsistent values.
The Chemical Management System (CMS) is a client/server application developed with Power Builder and Sybase for the Lewis Research Center (LeRC). Power Builder is a client-server application development tool, Sybase is a Relational Database Management System. The entire LeRC community can access the CMS from any desktop environment. The multiple functions and benefits of the CMS are addressed.
The presentation examines BCR radio frequency identification (BCR/RFID) hardware, integrated RFID over a delay/disruption tolerant network (DTN), and pilot projects for RFID for center operations.
Systems engineering and management applied to urban development, education, water management, inventory management, Saturn-Apollo project, and ecology
The primary role of the Technical Integration Office is to provide technical solutions and services to different branches at KSC (Kennedy Space Center) and NASA program customers. The Technical Integration Office helps support KSC's operational needs by providing services such as digital connectivity, data center services, modelling and simulation tools, and communication video services. To learn the necessary technology and processes for my internship, I am working on two projects: learning C# (C Sharp programming language) with SQL and developing requirements for a PX (Communication and Public Engagement) inventory management system. To learn how to efficiently program with C#, my mentor assigned me to complete a sports informatics application that would let users discover facts and rules about various sports. The sports informatics application comes with search capabilities, report generating features, rule lists that users can modify, and diagrams for various sport strategies. To further build upon this project, I also developed a sport simulation game with the application. Once I begin more SQL-based projects, I will have the opportunity to learn how to manage databases and link SQL servers with C# programs. To develop requirements for the inventory management system, I have met with PX representatives and toured their storage facilities to see how they organize and store their items and equipment. I will also be meeting with representatives from the budget office to find out what information must be in a system budget report. The main components the system must have are customer request management, a search feature for items and equipment, report generation capabilities, and automated system warnings when item quantities reach or go below administrator-specified threshold levels. I have drafted questions and shall statements that will ultimately become part of the inventory management system requirements document.
Logistics can be defined as the process of strategically managing the acquisition, movement, and storage of materials, parts, and finished inventory (and the related information flow) through the organization and its marketing channels in a cost effective manner. It is concerned with delivering the right product to the right customer in the right place at the right time. The logistics function is composed of inventory management, facilities management, communications unitization, transportation, materials management, and production scheduling. The relationship between logistics and information systems is clear. Systems such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Point of Sale (POS) systems, and Just in Time (JIT) inventory management systems are important elements in the management of product development and delivery. With improved access to market demand figures, logisticians can decrease inventory sizes and better service customer demand. However, without accurate, timely information, little, if any, of this would be feasible in today's global markets. Information systems specialists can learn from logisticians. In a manner similar to logistics management, information logistics is concerned with the delivery of the right data, to the ring customer, at the right time. As such, information systems are integral components of the information logistics system charged with providing customers with accurate, timely, cost-effective, and useful information. Information logistics is a management style and is composed of elements similar to those associated with the traditional logistics activity: inventory management (data resource management), facilities management (distributed, centralized and decentralized information systems), communications (participative design and joint application development methodologies), unitization (input/output system design, i.e., packaging or formatting of the information), transportations (voice, data, image, and video communication systems), materials management (data acquisition, e.g., EDI, POS, external data bases, data entry) and production scheduling (job, staff, and project scheduling).
Spacecraft inventory management is currently performed by the crew and as systems become more complex, increased crew time will be required to perform routine logistics activities. If future spacecraft are to function effectively as research labs and production facilities, the efficient use of crew time as a limited resource for performing mission functions must be employed. The use of automation and robotics technology, such as automated warehouse and materials handling functions, can free the crew from many logistics tasks and provide more efficient use of crew time. Design criteria for a Space Station Automated Logistics Inventory Management System is focused on through the design and demonstration of a mobile two armed terrestrial robot. The system functionally represents a 0 gravity automated inventory management system and the problems associated with operating in such an environment. Features of the system include automated storage and retrieval, item recognition, two armed robotic manipulation, and software control of all inventory item transitions and queries.
Current inventory management techniques for consumables and supplies aboard space vehicles are burdensome and time consuming. Inventory of food, clothing, and supplies are taken periodically by manually scanning the barcodes on each item. The inaccuracy of reading barcodes and the excessive amount of time it takes for the astronauts to perform this function would be better spent doing scientific experiments. Therefore, there is a need for an alternative method of inventory control by NASA astronauts. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic data capture technology that has potential to create a more effective and user-friendly inventory management system (IMS). In this paper we introduce a Design for Six Sigma Research (DFSS-R) methodology that allows for reliability testing of RFID systems. The research methodology uses a modified sequential design of experiments process to test and evaluate the quality of commercially available RFID technology. The results from the experimentation are compared to the requirements provided by NASA to evaluate the feasibility of using passive Generation 2 RFID technology to improve inventory control aboard crew exploration vehicles.
ERTS-1 resolution capabilities and repetitive coverage have allowed the acquisition of several statewide inventories of natural resource features not previously completed or that could not be completed in any other way. Familiarity with landform, tone, pattern and other converging factors, along with multidate imagery, has been required. Nevada's vegetation has been mapped from ERTS-1. Dynamic characteristics of the landscape have been studied. Sequential ERTS-1 imagery has proved its usefulness for mapping vegetation, following vegetation phenology changes, monitoring changes in lakes and reservoirs (including water quality), determining changes in surface mining use, making fire fuel estimates and determining potential hazard, mapping the distribution of rain and snow events, making range readiness determinations, monitoring marshland management practices and other uses. Feasibility has been determined, but details of incorporating the data in management systems awaits further research and development. The need is to accurately define the steps necessary to extract required or usable information from ERTS imagery and fit it into on-going management programs.
Disturbance events strongly affect the composition, structure, and function of forest ecosystems; however, existing U.S. land management inventories were not designed to monitor disturbance. To begin addressing this gap, the North American Forest Dynamics (NAFD) project has examined a geographic sample of 50 Landsat satellite image time series to assess trends in forest disturbance across the conterminous United States for 1985-2005. The geographic sample design used a probability-based scheme to encompass major forest types and maximize geographic dispersion. For each sample location disturbance was identified in the Landsat series using the Vegetation Change Tracker (VCT) algorithm. The NAFD analysis indicates that, on average, 2.77 Mha/yr of forests were disturbed annually, representing 1.09%/yr of US forestland. These satellite-based national disturbance rates estimates tend to be lower than those derived from land management inventories, reflecting both methodological and definitional differences. In particular the VCT approach used with a biennial time step has limited sensitivity to low-intensity disturbances. Unlike prior satellite studies, our biennial forest disturbance rates vary by nearly a factor of two between high and low years. High western US disturbance rates were associated with active fire years and insect activity, while variability in the east is more strongly related to harvest rates in managed forests. We note that generating a geographic sample based on representing forest type and variability may be problematic since the spatial pattern of disturbance does not necessarily correlate with forest type. We also find that the prevalence of diffuse, non-stand clearing disturbance in US forests makes the application of a biennial geographic sample problematic. Future satellite-based studies of disturbance at regional and national scales should focus on wall-to-wall analyses with annual time step for improved accuracy.