WBIs Tech Sprint Expertise Offers New Solutions for Disposal of Unexploded Ordnance
02.03.23 08:19 PM By Jennie Hempstead
By: Laura Dempsey
For three intensive days, personnel from Wright Brothers Institute, AFRL’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate (AFRL/RX) and Junior Force Warfighter Operations in RX (JFWORX) studied one of the Air Force’s most precarious problems: disposal of unexploded ordnance.
The current process for EMUD, or Expedient Multiple UXO (unexploded explosive ordnance) Disposal, is time- and manpower-intensive, requiring highly skilled Airmen to perform the job safely. When faced with an after-strike base recovery effort, those critical elements are in short supply. AFRL/RX’s JFWORX was took on the challenge of developing ideas to improve the process and tools required, aiming for a reduction of execution time from hours to less than 60 minutes.
WBI’s Technical Sprint process was a perfect mechanism to tackle this challenge. WBI’s Rapid Innovation team has years of experience in this facilitation practice, which serves to bring experts together for an intensive series of workshops and solution development in a predefined timeframe. Sprints performed both in-person and virtually, yield outcomes for AFRL such as potential licensing opportunities, proof of concept for a developing technology, and problem deconstruction to avoid research pitfalls. WBI utilized this process to help AFRL quickly determine technology investment pathways, manufacturing options, and concepts for further testing.