At an ANSYS Granta webinar, Terry Wong, Principal Scientist at Aerojet Rocketdyne, discussed the business case for materials information management. Aerojet was a pioneer in this area, implementing a system in the mid-1990s. When the software on which their original system was built became obsolete, Aerojet ran an 18 month project to select a new vendor for what had become a strategic tool. They selected GRANTA MI based on ease-of-use, long-term support, and the ability to extend their existing capabilities by integrating with key design and simulation tools.
The system is now supporting work at 5 sites across North America, with over 45,000 records in the database storing and linking together raw test data, fitted property curves, and design properties. It Materials Engineering, Test Management, Structures, and Design teams.
The business case for the investment was based on factors such as: ensuring rapid, reliable access to data at all times; providing confidence in data quality, thus avoiding the need for re-testing; retaining valuable data and IP, and providing support for diverse materials (metals, composites, solid propellants) in a single system. Integration was a critical point: by providing materials data to their ANSYS simulation tools and Creo design environment, time is saved in looking for and entering data, and sources of error are avoided. Terry Wong explained: “The business case included time savings, cost avoidance, and support for our MBSE (model-based systems engineering) initiative.”