SEPTEMBER 2024AEROSPACEDEFENSEREVIEW.COM19By Gabrielle Carlisle, Vice President of Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Logistics, Millennium Space SystemsSCALING MANUFACTURING FOR THE NEW SPACE ENVIRONMENTGrowth 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 improvementTo deliver at scale, companies must drive improvement and commonality across processes and production lines. There are several ways to do this. Gabrielle CarlisleCXO InsightsCREATING 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
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