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NASA Ames Research Center Reduces Costs and Saves Engineering Time With Adept Document Management

Wednesday 23. January 2008 - Investment Improves Access to Critical Information at Wind Tunnel Facility

SolidWorks World — NASA Ames Research Center’s Unitary Plan Wind Tunnels (UPWT) in Mountain View, California, a leader in aeronautics and aerospace wind tunnel testing for NASA, industry, the DOD, and other government agencies, has deployed Synergis Software’s Adept document management to improve efficiency and management of their design and engineering documents. With Adept, the Wind Tunnel Division saves money, reduces the time to find drawings, and gives engineers immediate access to data throughout the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel facility.
According to Bill Newby, a Configuration Management (CM)/CAD specialist for JACOBS Technology who supports NASA’s Unitary Plan Wind Tunnels, “As part of engineering support, one of my main CM functions is to maintain the engineering drawings and documents for equipment and structures that are part of the wind tunnels, including model support stings and adapters, motor fan blades and shrouds. We test scaled-down models of jet fighters like the F18; and research spacecraft like the Space Shuttle.” The Wind Tunnel Division uses SolidWorks, AutoCAD, CosmosWorks Professional and Surfcam for its engineering, design/drafting, and machining needs, and Adept to manage its 12,000-plus drawings.
Prior to implementing Adept document management, the drawings for the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel were managed at a separate facility. To find a drawing, an engineer or document control person would have to walk to that building and dig through masses of stick files or microfiche cards, taking hours or even days to locate the right drawing.
“Our main business objectives in implementing a data management system were time, cost and accessibility,” says Newby. “Now we can search for documents, and pull them up in seconds. With Adept, we have the drawings available from our desktop. We type in a word and boom — the drawing or drawings we’re looking for come right up.”
Other advantages that Adept offered were a user-friendly interface, tight integration with both AutoCAD and SolidWorks, and an affordable price.