Northrop Grumman

Seeking creative, innovative ways of maintaining demanding production rates while remaining focused on quality and affordability is key to the growth of the F-35 program at Northrop Grumman. The company’s advanced manufacturing expertise is a key factor that enables the F-35 center fuselage production at speed and scale.

In late 2001, Northrop Grumman was named a principal member of the Lockheed Martin-led industry team that is developing, producing and sustaining three variants of the stealthy, multi-role F-35 Lightning II. Meeting the high-rate production needs for the program meant incorporating greater automation capabilities and cutting-edge robotics.

In addition to the center fuselage, Northrop Grumman produces multiple mission systems that serve as the F-35’s eyes and ears in the sky and provide the pilot with unmatched performance and situational awareness.

This includes its integrated Communications, Navigation and Identification (CNI) system, AN/APG-81 radar and sustainment of the Electro-Optical Distributed Aperture System (EODAS). The team also delivers technology infused global sustainment and modernization to ensure the F-35 fleet around the world maintains mission readiness.

Counting on Automation to Improve the F-35 Production

"We knew that automation and robotics would be key to meeting the F-35 program's goal of continued high-volume production," says Glenn Masukawa, vice president and F-35 program manager at Northrop Grumman. "We also needed to be affordable, which implied a lot of cost reductions over time."

Northrop Grumman had previously pioneered automated manufacturing systems to produce key subassemblies for military aircraft. However, the new expectation set was for a production interval of one day -- a goal that would test even the most advanced aircraft assembly lines in the world

Learning from Automakers to Develop an Integrated Manufacturing System

To meet this challenge, the company turned to a comparable high-rate production industry in the country: the U.S. automotive industry.

"We teamed up with KUKA Systems North America, a Detroit-based automation technology company that specialized in integrating assembly lines for the automotive industry," explains Scott Johnson, F-35 center fuselage integrated product team lead. "We blended their understanding of automation and automotive production lines with our expertise in aerospace tooling. The resulting Integrated Assembly Line (IAL) represents the best production practices from both industries."

The IAL was also an opportunity to eliminate previous standalone islands in the company's F-35 manufacturing process and develop an automated approach to manufacturing the center fuselage, he adds.

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