Radar Value Engineering

Customer Problem:

A surveillance radar with outdated, proprietary computer hardware and software had limited performance and limited technical refresh capability, with much higher, long term maintenance costs. Use of proprietary systems had also led to decreased reliability, maintainability, and availability, rendering the radar ineffective, and/or inoperable at critical times, resulting in valuable data losses during execution of costly flight and ground test activities.

What INTUITIVE did:

The Value Engineering (VE) Team used the VE methodology to mitigate obsolescence of the signal data processing equipment utilized by the sensors. Efforts identified decommissioned government furnished equipment, which were inexpensively purchased from an alternate government agency and applied toward future builds of radars.

Impact:

The VE Program avoided major and costly redesign and accelerated the production and fielding of new radar units, as well as improved the availability of cost-effective radar components and assemblies resulting in a saving of over $116M.
http://www.irtc-hq.com/projects/value-engineering/


Value Engineering
Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)
Transmit / Receive Module

Photo of Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) - Transmit/Receive Integrated Multi-channel Module (T/RIMM) Part of the transmit/receive module of the THAAD radar was a Transmit/Receive Element Assembly (T/REA) type architecture. This technology is costly and outdated. A study was conducted to determine possible alternatives for improved performance and cost reduction of the module. The study determined that the transmit/receive function of the radar could be accomplished at a lower cost through a Transmit/Receive Integrated Multi-channel Module (T/RIMM) architecture developed by Raytheon Electronic Systems.

The T/REA type architecture was replaced with the T/RIMM type architecture on the radar module, greatly reducing the life cycle cost of the THAAD radar.
 
The Government Saved $27.4M Over a 7 - Year Period in Cost Avoidance.
http://www.redstone.army.mil/amrdec/io/VEP_EX2.html