SAWE Conference Update – Standards and Practice Day changes

We have changed the format of SnP Day on Tuesday of the SAWE Conference in Norfolk VA.  We will only have a 30 minute opening an no recap session at the end of the day.  This will give each industry committee more time for discussions and some other exciting activities. The industry committee meetings will be from 8:30 to 5:00PM with the traditional coffee breaks and SnP Luncheon from 12:00 to 1:30 PM.

I am pleased to announce the following additional activities:

RP C- 9 Data Exchange – ISO-10303-242 Meeting from 3:30-5:00 in room 1783

Sebastian-Verian Herda will lead a meeting to define the scope of their project titled Mass Properties Digital Data Attributes for PLM data exchange & Reporting,  The purpose of the meeting is to review and to agree on a Project Proposal.   As I understand it (Andy Schuster VP-SnP), the purpose of the project  is create cconsistent PLM data and exchange protocols will simplify MPD functionality set up in PLM & ERP systems. The STEP AP 242 file (ISO 10303-242) is a system independent file format and is the best established specification within the Automotive, Aerospace, and Defence industries. It specifies the application protocol for Model based 3D engineering.  The STEP effort will be added to the other data exchange methods used by SAWE members such as MPEX, and RP M-1 to create a Cross Industry Function Recommended Practice.  The meeting will clarify my interpretation.

Mass Properties Engineer Certification Discussions

Each Industry Committee has set aside an hour of the day to discuss the impact of this program to their industry.  The program will be presented in a 90 minute presentation on Monday afternoon during the technical session.  The program leaders Yi-ling Tam, John Hargrave, Bill Boze and Clint Stephenson, will visit each meeting to get feedback based on a set of open ended questions to draw out your opinions.  From discussions at the SnP Standards Review Board meeting, we know that the impact of the Mass Properties Engineer Certification program will be dramatically different between industries, and we want to know how dramatic.  For example the Marine and Military Aircraft industries may want everything in English, while the Offshore industry may want the training materials and exams in English, Portuguese and Korean so that the detailed design and construction workers can do things in their native language.  The committee would like your thoughts on the program.

Weight Engineers Handbook – Update Discussions

Damian Yanez, and Andy Schuster will visit each Industry Committee for a 30 minute discussion of what should be updated in the new revision of the handbook.  For example :

  • We know that some sections are so out of date (i.e. Crew Systems and Power Systems from the 1960’s Mercury program), and need to be updated.  The existing sections will not help us  to get to the moon in 2024 or mars in 2035. 
  • We will also  ask each IC to commit to reviewing sections in the handbook that apply to their industry, by the end of the summer.  All we want to know whether the 2011 edition has the right information..  For example we’ll ask the marine Industry Committee to review the Marine section of the Handbook for errors omissions, etc.
  • Finally, we will get commitments from those Industry Committees such as the offshore, for their schedule to provide a new section to the handbook.

The Gulfstream team of MPE’s is about a third of the way through converting the old handbook into MS Word.  This is a significant accomplishment!!!  We owe it to them to assure the data they convert or include is up to  date and accurate. 

Andy Schuster

Technical Content Update for the 78th International Conference

SAWE has been blessed with a great supply of technical content for our May conference in Norfolk VA. Earlier the technical committee had started to refuse submissions due to a lack of presentation slots. It is now planned to open up an additional technical track, and so be able to include all of the initially proposed as well as some later incoming papers. We hope this is another great reason for you to attend our conference. Attendee’s receive electronic copies of our technical content as well.  So get registered, and get your accommodations. Remember, registrations conducted after May 3rd incur a $50 late charge, and training course registrations are to be completed no later than April 19th.

Standards Public Review

ANSI-SAWE STD M-4 is in the committee draft review stage and has been posted on the Standards Public Review page. Any comments should be submitted by 5/1/2019.


RP A-7 is in the committee draft review stage and has been posted on the Standards Public Review page. Any comments should be submitted by 5/1/2019.  

RP O-3 is in the public draft review stage and has been posted on the Standards Public Review page. This document is available for anyone to review (general public or SAWE member). Any comments should be submitted by 4/26/2019.


http://sawe.org/technical/rp/publicreview