Digital Engineering Driving Unmanned Systems Development

With expansive experience on a wide variety of commercial and defense platforms, digital engineering expertise and advanced manufacturing approaches, Spirit AeroSystems is uniquely positioned to support DoD and Defense prime contractors with the development and fielding of future Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).

UAS will be an area of enduring demand for the DOD. The Department is investing in UAS development to enable replacement of legacy platforms and position to counter current and future threats. UAS will operate across a wide range of architectures, involving disparate types of systems, from swarms of small modular mission-configurable systems, to tailored special purpose systems built at lower-rate. Notwithstanding the fact that future UAS systems will be modular and easily upgradable and deployable, they must be affordable.

"The challenge for the DOD and UAS prime contractors is to develop, test, field and sustain the most capable systems in the shortest time possible at the lowest possible cost."

Moreover, the DOD will need to have a capability to produce these systems at higher rates with exceptional quality, potentially on product lines that involve multiple models. The challenge for the DOD and UAS prime contractors is to develop, test, field and sustain the most capable systems in the shortest time possible at the lowest possible cost.

DOD and UAS prime contractors can address the above challenges in UAS development and fielding by adopting three practices/concepts:

• Employing commercial best practices for affordability, producibility and industrialization as well as utilizing existing infrastructure

• Leveraging digital engineering and model-based simulations early to flatten learning curves and speed program development

• Digitally integrate advanced manufacturing and right-sized automation

Adopting commercial best practices

Commercial companies have the ability to create significant cost savings for the DOD through proven cost-reduction practices and cultures based on efficiency. Continuous cost improvement is engrained in the culture, which has generated decades of supply chain best practices, design-to-cost techniques and requirement management strategies.

Employing commercial best practices, like should-cost and clean-sheet price analysis,helps programs achieve cost targets and bend the cost curve to the low end of traditional cost ranges.  Expansive commercial and defense supply chain networks drive increased purchasing power, subsequently creating significant supply base cost leverage for prime customers.

Design for Manufacturing (DFM) isthe engineering DNAthat drivesIntegrated Product Teams.  It requires an inordinate amount of focus on production research, planning, and execution during the design phase of a program. The costandflow ofproduction systems are validated through digital modeling, ensuring a low-risk transition into full system integration, qualification, and production.Additionally, these commercial production systems typically manage multi-model production lines. At Spirit, we driveimproved quality and reduced assembly flow, tooling and capital requirements for full rate production through the use of our Spirit Exact®solution.  Leveraging precision drilled holes to eliminate traditional assembly tool strings,Spirit Exact has reduced production cycle times by 30 percent on our commercial aircraft programs.Spirit Exact can be easily applied to UAS system development and lead to meaningful reductions in tooling, capital equipment and assembly costs. It can also facilitate the establishment of a production system that is adaptable to change, accommodates multi-model lines, improves maintainability through full digital definition, and enables interchangeability.

Spirit has significant experience on program startup through low-rate and full-rate production across multiple military and commercial platforms. We know how to apply experience and lessons learned to UAS development to increase program manufacturing readiness level, and in turn, reduce program performance risk.

Leveraging digital engineering and model-based simulations early to flatten learning curves and speed program development

Early engagement between OEM’s and their immediate suppliers is the best way to optimize performance, cost, and producibility of commercial and military systems alike.  In our experience, when an OEM brings suppliers onto a team after a product is deep into preliminary design, it diminishes teammates’ ability to impact both cost and manufacturing reliably. 

However, when a supplier is able to engage early and often in the OEM’s Integrated Digital Environment (IDE), collaboration is much more meaningful and impactful.Full IDE integration among government. OEM and suppliers allow for the defactodigitization of a traditional IPT.  Team connectivity via the IDE allows for seamless coordination among team members, dramatically improved cycle times, and a more efficient environment.In addition, all stakeholders gain a real-time view into program activities and design maturity. Finally, translating the IDE configuration data to production simulations, factory animations, and training applications would enable both the government and UAS OEMs to gain pre-learning in a fully digital manner.

However, when a supplier is able to engage early and often in the OEM’s Integrated Digital Environment (IDE), collaboration is much more meaningful and impactful.Full IDE integration among government. OEM and suppliers allow for the defactodigitization of a traditional IPT.  Team connectivity via the IDE allows for seamless coordination among team members, dramatically improved cycle times, and a more efficient environment.In addition, all stakeholders gain a real-time view into program 

Spirit Spoiler Fabrication Line – Production Simulation

Spirit AeroSystems Defense and Space has the ability to leverage its vast commercial digital engineering experience and model-based simulations to drive UAS program efficiency, generate cost savings, align all relevant stakeholders, and dramatically increase program flow during both development and production phases.

Digitally integrate advanced manufacturing and right-sized automation

Integrating fundamental industrial engineering principles with innovation in advanced manufacturing and automation will drive safety,productivity, process control, and quality to achieve targets. 

Traditional manufacturing requires very large inventory of parts, working capital that is tracked manually, manufacturing schedules are updated manually, and usually not focused on the ergonomics or designing processes to ensure that mechanics have everything they need to complete their tasks with minimal wasted motion and time.

Future factories must focus on being human-centric (process and tools),automation (right-sized and adaptive), knowledge-based manufacturing (digital twin and virtualization), and fullinventory andasset control (data and conveyance).Spirit’s advanced manufacturing capabilities leverage automation to enable key production system objectives.Our large commercial business and diverse customer base places us in a unique position, creating a dynamic “proving ground” for advanced manufacturingstrategies.

One example is leveraging legacy products to incorporate digital twins, inventory control and dynamic scheduling with the use of a cloud based Industrial IoT solution. We call it FloorSight. This system focuses on proactive decision making by leveraging digital visibility of all assets and demand requirements.  Anyone in the factory can track every part detail part from warehouse, through fabrication division, to feeder lines, to automated fastening, to build location by using the visual dashboards throughout the factory. The IoT technology creates real-time visibility on inventory, machine, resource and demand status by linking all Spirit system that are required together. We use these data with algorithms to dynamically schedule the production assets, product and workers to build the right product at the right time. This system has improved our productivity, efficiency, quality and working capital.

These concepts and approaches can help the DOD and UAS prime contractors develop, test, field and sustain the most capable systems in the shortest time possible and at the lowest possible cost.

Given our core design-to-build capabilities, decades of lessons learned, and existing facilities and infrastructure, Spirit AeroSystems Defense and Space is uniquely positioned to support the development of next generation UAS affordably, quickly, at scale, and with the highest levels of quality.