TOBYHANNA ARMY DEPOT, Pa. - To meet an urgent requirement, Tobyhanna personnel pulled together to fabricate 20 Self Protective Adaptive Roller Kit brackets in less than two months.
The 583-pound, 76-inch brackets will be used to mount Self Protective Adaptive Roller Kits (SPARK) to Stryker vehicles in Afghanistan. The SPARK, which were fielded in 2007, are modular Improvised Explosive Device (IED) roller systems which are mounted on tactical wheeled platforms.
In August, Lt. Col. Karl Borjes, Product Manager IED Defeat/Protection Force at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., contacted Tobyhanna with the requirement.
Picatinny provided Tobyhanna engineers with a drawing package. Technicians in the manufacturing cell use the package to create parts programs, and allocate and order materials if needed. The manufacturing cell is part of the Production Engineering (PE) Directorate's Manufacturing Engineering Branch.
Turnaround time for the bracket design process was about a week.
"Logistics Modernization Program data, or routes, were built in conjunction with machine programs where applicable," explains Mike Evans, engineering technician in the branch. "This direct relationship was critical to the completion of these parts to the schedule, as all items were able to be routed to the appropriate cost centers from the onset of production."
It takes about two weeks to fabricate one bracket. Because the requirement involved a quick turnaround time, engineers and mission shop personnel verified the processes while still going forward.
About 60 percent of the materials for the first five brackets were already here, noted Jack Andrejko, an engineering technician in the PE Directorate.
"We had to change some processes on-the-fly and that held us up a little, but through a collaborative effort we were able to define all of the processes," Tim Knabel explains. He is a mechanical engineer in the PE Directorate.
One example of the collaborative effort consisted of employees in the Systems Integration and Support Directorate's Welding Branch fabricating a fixture, made from aluminum and steel, that made it easier to weld the large, heavy brackets, notes Doug Stevens, branch chief.
"It was an extreme effort on everyone's part," Stevens explains, noting that branch employees needed to produce a bracket every 24 hours in order to meet the requirements, but didn't always have the parts readily available.
"It doesn't matter what I assign to the employees; they always meet or exceed the customers' needs, and when faced with a challenge they never back down," Stevens says, adding that he's proud of the work they do, and the support the employees give to the warfighter.
Employees in the Welding Branch worked hand-in-hand with employees in the Machining Branch to manufacture the fixture, explains Zigmund Pieszala, Machining Branch chief.
He notes that one of the challenges machinists experienced was the steel bushings required precise holes.
"We found that after these bushing were welded into the frame, the heat caused by the welding process made the steel material very hard to drill and ream," Pieszala explains.
Bob Bohinski, machinist, worked with engineers and Welding Branch employees to come up with a solution. They found that the bushing could be welded into place, sent to the Machining Branch to drill precise holes, then returned for final weld during frame construction.
Chris Paulic, Component Refinishing Branch chief, notes that when it came time for the Alumina Zirconia blast process, which prepares the metal for painting by giving it a rough surface that allows for better paint adhesion, branch employees experienced balance issues due to the bracket's weight. Employees overcame the challenge by using a one-ton hoist operated by trained technicians.
Karl Pope and Leo McHugh, Machining Branch toolmakers, worked with engineers on heat treating processes of steel pins for the brackets. The team reinstated heat treating methods, and used their expertise in heat treating to harden the pins to the required specifications. This allowed them to get this product to the customer as soon as possible and also keep this work in-house, Pieszala explains.
"Employees who worked on the SPARK brackets took it upon themselves to overcome all the challenges they faced in completing this effort and provided a quality product in a short period of time," Jay Wilson says. He is chief of the SIS Directorate's Component Paint Branch.
Branch employees primed the bracket with solvent-based primer and top coated that with tan chemical agent resistant coating paint.
Since the bracket is larger than most components that pass through the branch, flipping it to paint the other side is a challenge, Wilson notes, adding that the use of overhead cranes from the Finishing and Etching Branch, when available, were necessary to complete the task. If the cranes were not available then four or five employees would manually flip the bracket.
Once the initial bracket passed a fit check at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md., which consisted of hooking it up to the Stryker to verify all the connection points, it was sent overseas.
"Tobyhanna did a fantastic job and I was impressed with the bracket," notes Mark Roman, liaison officer and test coordinator at Aberdeen. He was present for the fit check and commends Tobyhanna's workmanship, stressing the importance of the work force's job.
The other 19 brackets were sent directly overseas as soon as they were ready; the final batch was sent last week.
"The (mission) shops come through every time," Andrejko says. "By everybody working together and talking, we're able to overcome obstacles."
Tobyhanna Army Depot is the Defense Department's largest center for the repair, overhaul and fabrication of a wide variety of electronics systems and components, from tactical field radios to the ground terminals for the defense satellite communications network. Tobyhanna's missions support all branches of the Armed Forces.
About 5,600 personnel are employed at Tobyhanna, which is located in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania.
Tobyhanna Army Depot is part of the U.S. Army CECOM Life Cycle Management Command. Headquartered at Fort Monmouth, N.J., the command's mission is to research, develop, acquire, field and sustain communications, command, control computer, intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors capabilities for the Armed Forces.
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