MAY 2025AEROSPACEDEFENSEREVIEW.COM9Leveraging digital engineering and model-based simulations early to flatten learning curves and speed program developmentEarly 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.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 automationIntegrating 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 full inventory and asset 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 manufacturing strategies.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 Floor Sight. 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. Spirit High Rate Composite Fuselage AssemblySpirit High Rate Metallic Fuselage AssemblySpirit Spoiler Fabrication Line ­ Production SimulationDynamic Asset Tracking and SchedulingAutomated Fastening
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