U.S. Air Force Orientation Guide to Advanced Manufacturing: Developed by the Consortium for Advanced Management International (CAM-I), An Intern Research Project

The objective of this research project is to describe the factory of the future as projected by the Cost Management System (CMS) developed by the Consortium for Advanced Management International (CAM-I), formerly Computer-Aided Manufacturing -- International, Inc., and its sponsors. The project will also address the implications the system has on Cost Improvement Curve Theory, Cost/Schedule Control Systems Criteria, and the movement toward Total Quality, which have now evolved into Earned Value Management. This project was completed before the new terminology was adopted, although the same principles will still apply. I produced this project because at the time I was the Air Force representative to CAM-I, had been the Comptroller Representative and had a hand in editing and discussing Cost Accounting for Today’s Advanced Manufacturing, the CAM-I/CMS Conceptual Design, which is the precursor to Activity Accounting. The project begins with a brief history of the CMS, addressing the four phases of the effort… The second chapter discusses the factory of the future and Cost Improvement Curve Theory. It is divided into two sections. The factory of the future will be described using the generic activities found in the CMS Engineering/Manufacturing Functional Model. These activities are applied to the five manufacturing environments using the Manufacturing Processes Profile. The discussion on Cost Improvement Curve Theory presents two viewpoints on the causes of learning, describing how learning might occur in each of the manufacturing environments. The third chapter addresses CMS Cost Information features. It contains five sections. In the first four sections a different part of a company’s cost information system will be described. The four parts are life cycle cost management, activity accounting, factory floor information and cost and performance measurement. In each of these sections CMS concepts are discussed, the CAM-I System Design Module is described and application of the Cost/Schedule Control Systems Criteria (Earned Value Management) is discussed. The last section summarizes Criteria (EVM) application. The fourth chapter addresses the CMS and quality. It contains two sections. The first section describes CMS tools which relate to quality. These are Activity Accounting, the Quality Function, Quality Management and Investment Management. The second section describes the CMS role in change, both rule and cultural. Appendix One is the C/SCSC Checklist, as applied to the CMS. Note that some updating may be required to update to EVM protocols. It should still be useful as a cross check to criteria application between the various modules. Appendix Two is a copy of the project briefing. The project utilized the CMS¬ Conceptual Design and the CMS System Design deliverables rather heavily. This was necessary because of the nature of the project as a description and discussion of these sources. For ease of reading quotation marks and indention are omitted. Suffice it to say that much of the-description found in this project is lifted directly from the data sources (especially some of the charts). These sources, as well as the government publications utilized, are listed in Appendix Tree. This project is a useful a primer on the automated factory of the future and on the CAM-I CMS. The CMS will likely be the industry standard in cost estimation, planning and control. The discussion found in Chapter 3 will aid Demonstration/Review Teams in validating contractor Earned Value systems which utilize a CMS. Benefits from participation in the CMS are greater visibility of technology improvement costs now buried in overhead, more accurate product cost, elimination of waste through tracking of non-value added cost provided through activity accounting, awareness)of change in defense contractor systems and the ”state of the art” and greater defense contractor participation in the CMS effort.