As the Department of Defense continues development of the future warrior system, the difficulty of moving rapidly from design to manufacturing for complex technologies is becoming a major concern. In particular, there are communication gaps between design and manufacturing that hinder rapid development of new products important for these future military developments. To help address those concerns, DOD asked the NRC to develop a framework for "bridging" these gaps through data management, modeling, and simulation. This report presents the results of this study. It provides a framework for virtual design and manufacturing and an assessment of the necessary tools; an analysis of the economic dimensions; an examination of barriers to virtual design and manufacturing in the DOD acquisition process; and a series of recommendations and research needs.

Table of Contents


Front Matter
Executive Summary
1 The Need to Bridge Design, Materials, and Production
2 Framework for Virtual Design and Manufacturing
3 Tools for Virtual Design and Manufacturing
4 Economic Dimension of Bridging Design and Manufacturing
5 Barriers to Virtual Design and Manufacturing in DoD Acquisition
6 Summary, Recommendations, and Research Needs
Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
Appendix B: Meeting Agendas
Appendix C: Current Engineering Design Tools
Appendix D: Selected Computer-Based Tools Vendors
Appendix E: Acronyms