Scaling Manufacturing for the New Space Environment

Gabrielle Carlisle, Vice President of Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Logistics, Millennium Space Systems

Growth in the small satellite market is increasing dramatically each year, and customers need satellites on rapid timelines. High-throughput manufacturing is a key factor in the ability to deliver high-performance small satellite constellations on schedule. This type of production is new to the space industry, but it’s essential to meet our customers’ needs. This is why Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing Company, set up the Small Satellite Factory.

As vice president of manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, my role focuses on scaling our capabilities to support the high-throughput production of our constellations. Overall, I’m responsible for manufacturing, supply chain, and logistics execution at our facilities in El Segundo, California, which includes production engineering, change-control process, strategic supply base management and digital transformation implementation.

There are several focus areas that enable Millennium to deliver rapidly.

● The company invested in a common ALTAIR core bus architecture that is flexible to support multiple missions, orbits and configurations to be launch agnostic.

● We are 80% vertically integrated, with focused active production lines across our Small Sat Factory that share the common ALTAIR core bus architecture.

● We intentionally developed advanced common core products that can be used for any mission and are rated across orbits – LEO, MEO and GEO.

Every company is different so this may not work for everyone. However, focus areas that should be common across industry are continuous improvement, digital transformation and workforce development.

Continuous improvement

To deliver at scale, companies must drive improvement and commonality across processes and production lines. There are several ways to do this.

● Create a modular open system architecture that enables the interoperability of small sat subsystems and constellations.

● Strategic assessment of in-source versus out-source opportunity, to leverage vertically integrated components where appropriate to better control cost, schedule and quality.

● Explore application of commercial dual-use technology to continually refresh technology with the latest available advancements.

● Innovate from a design capability perspective while also incorporating automation. Design for manufacturability and test continuously improves cycle times and reduces cost.

Streamlining internal processes also depends on creating a strong internal feedback loop. Seeking input from individuals actively interacting with parts and process, and notably technicians for build, helps to identify gaps and areas of improvement so there’s a clear understanding of where to improve. Internal systems should be designed intentionally to facilitate open communication, which in turn distributes institutional knowledge throughout the workforce and creates useable datasets to leverage for strategic analytics.

Digital transformation

Digital transformation is an important part of streamlining operations. Taking a multi-pronged approach involving new system implementation and integration, automation and strategic use of data enables efficiencies across production teams and broader corporate functions.

Productivity increases can also be seen through use of digitized work instructions, notably in streamlining buyoff requirements and providing clarity in work serialization. In addition, using system integration across manufacturing execution system, or MES, and material requirements planning, or MRP, allows for a cohesive understanding of lead times and percent complete to improve schedule prediction and adherence.

By ensuring a robust implementation of a product lifecycle management/product data management system, in combination with a quality management system for change control process and deviation tracking, accuracy in configuration control and first-time quality can be controlled while enabling for tech refresh in product designs.

New systems and methods of data capture provide clear insights into manufacturing capabilities and constraints, to help scale production systems and improve delivery, quality and cost metrics.

Workforce development

Scaling effectively depends on developing an empowered, capable workforce. Cultivating a cross-functional skillset in a low-volume, high-mix manufacturing environment – rather than training teams to only one product – enables companies to maintain agility as they grow.

Adopting a skillset-focused approach is important, with technicians cross-train to multiple products. With this approach, when a blocker arises, teams can optimize their workload to remain efficient by completing work within their qualified skill area.

"Creating consistency in products and broadening employee skillsets not only increases the likelihood of achieving production goals on tight schedules, but it also creates a culture of openness, communication and trust."

Creating consistency in products and broadening employee skillsets not only increases the likelihood of achieving production goals on tight schedules, but it also creates a culture of openness, communication and trust. In this type of environment, lessons-learned inform development and drive system maturity while minimizing risk of repeat issues.

Incorporating these principles into our approach to our production system helps us deliver high-performance small satellites on unprecedented timelines. And we’re continuing to improve and optimize every day.

New space is changing the traditional landscape of aerospace and defense. Companies need to implement creative solutions to meet customer needs, and innovations in the manufacturing domain are leading the way.