Manufacturing - Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman Recognized with Manufacturing Leadership Awards

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:00:00 GMT

PALMDALE, Calif. – March 20, 2019 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has been recognized by the National Association of Manufacturers with Manufacturing Leadership Awards for three of its aircraft manufacturing capabilities. The cutting-edge capabilities harness metadata, analytics, and virtual and augmented reality in multiple Northrop Grumman manufacturing programs.

An F-35 technician measures the gaps between the frames and the ducts on the forward left inlet duct for the F-35 center fuselage. A core structure of the F-35 Lightning II aircraft, the center fuselage is produced on Northrop Grumman's integrated assembly line at its Palmdale Aircraft Integration Center of Excellence.

“We have a rich history of manufacturing the most advanced products in the world,” said Kevin Mitchell, sector vice president, global operations, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. “Today, we use a variety of manufacturing techniques to develop the capabilities to support our customer’s toughest missions. We are honored to be recognized for our leadership in manufacturing.”

The company was recognized for the following technologies:

The assembly metadata integration project extracts quality data from automated systems on Northrop Grumman’s F-35 Integrated Assembly Line. It uses advanced analytics to mine data and automate an otherwise tedious manual effort for identifying discrepancies, generating reports, evaluating and documenting the quality data, and defining and directing corrective action.
The analytics-enabled complex assemblies (ACA) capability leverages analytics to assemble complex airplane parts of diverse material types. It enables Northrop Grumman to machine complex parts on divergent machines and then drill precision hole-bores. This project reduces complexity, cost, facility requirements and risk while improving throughput and design change sensitivity. Northrop Grumman uses this capability on both its manned and autonomous aircraft systems, including the High Altitude Long Endurance family of systems that comprise programs like the U.S. Navy’s MQ-4C Triton and U.S. Air Force’s RQ-4 Global Hawk.
Northrop Grumman leverages augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and 3D analytics to improve airframe manufacturing processes. This enables the company to capture and analyze data to gain meaningful insights into manufacturing challenges experienced by human tasks. By combining airframe manufacturing data with artificial intelligence/machine learning, AR and VR, Northrop Grumman captures human variability and work content that reduces rework, disruption and downtime. Similar to the ACA capability, this can be used across the spectrum of Northrop Grumman aircraft programs.

Northrop Grumman will be recognized at the 15th Annual Manufacturing Leadership Awards Gala in conjunction with the Manufacturing Leadership Summit June 10-12 in Huntington Beach, California.

Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in autonomous systems, cyber, C4ISR, space, strike, and logistics and modernization to customers worldwide. Please visit news.northropgrumman.com and follow us on Twitter, @NGCNews, for more information.

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Northrop Grumman Palmdale Facility Awarded Quality Plant of the Year

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 14:15:00 GMT

PALMDALE, Calif. – March 1, 2019 – Northrop Grumman Corporation’s (NYSE: NOC) Palmdale Aircraft Integration Center of Excellence has been named the Quality Plant of the Year by Quality Magazine. Each year the publication awards this recognition to a manufacturing plant in the U.S.

Palmdale Aircraft Integration Center of Excellence was awarded the 2019 Quality Plant of the Year by Quality Magazine

“Quality is engrained in our team,” said Cory Carruth, vice president and Palmdale site manager, Northrop Grumman. “It’s part of our culture and something our employees take very personal as it’s critical to the safety of our warfighters.”

According to Quality Magazine, the award recognizes a manufacturing facility that uses world-class technology, equipment, services and techniques to reduce scrap, rework, warranty or manufacturing costs; improve productivity or cycle time; increase capacity; or improve adherence to quality standards.

As a core value at Northrop Grumman, quality is personal to its employees and foundational to all aspects of production.

“Our workforce is absolutely critical to quality,” said Deb Andree, vice president, mission assurance, Northrop Grumman. “They are involved from documenting requirements though delivery of post-production technology enhancements as well as logistics and sustainment. We provide our customers the highest quality products and services so they can achieve their mission.”

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Northrop Grumman BWI Campus Celebrates Manufacturing Day with STEM Students from Baltimore-area High Schools

Fri, 05 Oct 2018 14:00:00 GMT

BALTIMORE – Oct. 5, 2018 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) welcomed 31 students from Mergenthaler Vocational Technical High School, Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women and North County High School to its BWI campus on Monday to celebrate Manufacturing Day.

Northrop Grumman employees and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students from Mergenthaler Vocational Technical High School (Baltimore City), Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (Baltimore City), and North County High School (Anne Arundel County) teamed-up at Northrop Grumman’s BWI campus to celebrate Manufacturing Day on Monday, Oct. 1. Led by Northrop Grumman employees, students created Rube Goldberg machines designed to flip a light switch using household items.

Manufacturing Day is a nationwide event designed to inspire the next generation of manufacturers. Through partnerships with Baltimore-area schools, Northrop Grumman continues to further science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and encourage students to consider careers as manufacturing assemblers, technicians and engineers.

“Today’s manufacturing is highly advanced and requires skilled, creative and STEM-literate workers to make some of the most relied upon products in the world,” said Melissa Sandlin, manager, corporate citizenship, Northrop Grumman. “Through events like this, we are investing in our future workforce and introducing students to some of the diverse manufacturing career paths they can follow.”

Led by Northrop Grumman engineers, students created Rube Goldberg machines, devices designed to highlight a series of reactions that result in the completion of a simple task in a complicated fashion. Students were given a kit of materials including PVC piping, duct tape, dominos, marbles and magnets and were challenged to create a solution to flip a light switch and illuminate a light emitting diode (LED) light.

“Projects like this help simulate an environment that our manufacturing employees and engineers work in every day,” said Jenna Paukstis, director, Baltimore manufacturing, Northrop Grumman. “We work in teams, often with limited resources and a tight deadline. In order to achieve our goals, we need to draw upon creativity and overcome challenges along the way. These are all skills that we want to foster in students who will be the next manufacturing employees at Northrop Grumman and leaders in the defense of our nation.”

To view more pictures from Manufacturing Day 2018, click here.

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Northrop Grumman Completes Two Orion Spacecraft Launch Abort Motors for Upcoming Tests

Hillary Walker — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 17:00:00 GMT

Human spaceflight is inherently risky, which is why we have tremendous safeguards in place to protect our astronauts. When NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft fly in 2020, a Launch Abort System (LAS) will be incorporated into the design. Northrop Grumman’s launch abort motor is an integral part of the LAS, which will safely pull the Orion crew module away from the launch vehicle in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during ascent. Orion is designed to launch on NASA’s SLS, which will be the first vehicle to send humans into space from American soil since the space shuttle program ended in 2011. Northrop Grumman is on contract to Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor building Orion, to build the launch abort motor and attitude control motor for the LAS.

The Launch Abort Motor team stands near two completed motors before shipment. The AA-2 motor will play a key role in the Ascent Abort test scheduled for Spring 2019 and the QM-2 motor will be tested under cold conditions at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Promontory, Utah in December.

“My team understands the importance of the work we do,” said Steve Sara, program director, launch abort system, Northrop Grumman. “We hope that the launch abort motor never has to be used, but just like an ejection seat in a fighter pilot’s aircraft, if they need it, it needs to work every time.”

Recently, Northrop Grumman completed production of the launch abort motor that will fly as an integral part of a test of NASA’s LAS and Orion spacecraft in 2019. This full-stress test of the LAS, called Ascent Abort Test 2 (AA-2), will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying a fully functional launch abort system and a 22,000 pound Orion test vehicle to an altitude of 32,000 feet at Mach 1.3 (approximately 1,000 miles an hour). At that point, the LAS’ powerful reverse-flow abort motor will fire, carrying the Orion test vehicle away from the boost vehicle. In addition to the abort motor and attitude control motor for this test, Northrop Grumman is also providing the specialized rocket that will simulate SLS launch conditions.

As the AA-2 motor is prepared for its flight in Florida, the team is working hard to prepare for another very important test of a launch abort motor. The Qualification Motor-2 recently completed production at Northrop Grumman’s manufacturing facility in Magna, Utah and has been shipped to Northrop Grumman’s test facility in Promontory, Utah. The second qualification test is scheduled to take place in December. During this test the motor will be conditioned to cold temperatures to qualify the launch abort motor for flights in low temperature conditions. Both AA-2 and QM-2 are critical milestones on the path to the pad for the SLS and Orion programs.

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Northrop Grumman’s Missile Defense and Controls Continues its Legacy of Supporting Industry “Firsts”

Melissa Sheets — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 20:30:00 GMT

For over 70 years, Northrop Grumman’s Missile Defense and Controls (MD&C), headquartered in Elkton, Maryland, has supported many industry “firsts.” The company’s solid rockets helped explore the boundaries of space in the 1950’s and land on the moon for the first time in 1969, pioneering the design and testing of hypersonic engines. Since then, the facility has supported orbit insertion of commercial and GPS satellites, used controllable solid propulsion to intercept ballistic missile targets, and demonstrated that a scramjet could fly 10 times faster than the speed of sound.

Northrop Grumman’s Elkton, Md. Missile Defense and Controls facility was established in 1948. Today, the 550-acre site features 150 buildings and 380,000 square feet of enclosed floor space.

MD&C also continues to support the future of both crewed and uncrewed space exploration. In June, a Northrop Grumman STAR 48BV motor helped propel NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on its final trajectory to the sun. In addition, MD&C is providing the motor for the crew escape system aboard NASA’s next crewed vehicle: the Space Launch System (SLS). Future plans include demonstrating a propulsion system for a vehicle that can take off using a turbojet engine, transition to a hypersonic air-breathing engine, and transition back to landing as a plane.

The MD&C team continues to solve the industry’s most challenging problems with innovative solid and air-breathing propulsion solutions. Emerging threats around the world are driving the need for rapid development of high performing, highly agile rocket motors, engines and control systems. While adversaries are getting smarter, Northrop Grumman continues to meet the challenge by enhancing proven capabilities with new skills like additive manufacturing. Coupled with powerful design and analysis tools, and new materials, additive manufacturing is reshaping how the company approaches design and manufacturing processes to make the impossible -possible and affordable. Once complex subassemblies are now produced as single piece parts, improving performance characteristics, reliability and ease of assembly.

On the manufacturing side, Northrop Grumman technicians and inspectors build the most complex propulsion systems, and ensure that they have a work environment where their talent can shine. Initiatives related to safety, quality, delivery and cost engage the workforce daily and employees are empowered to offer process improvements and take action when needed.

MD&C has a proven track record for meeting tough challenges with unique engineering and manufacturing solutions. Whether it’s welding over live propellant, wrapping composite cases around multi-pulse propellant grains, building thermally balanced flight-weight scramjets or controlling hot gas flow with proportional control valves, employees work hard to provide the warfighter with the tools they need to keep America and its allies safe.

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Northrop Grumman Celebrates Manufacturing Day 2018

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 14:05:00 GMT

FALLS CHURCH, Va. – Oct. 1, 2018 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) today kicked off a week-long celebration across the company to recognize its thousands of manufacturing employees and highlight its advanced, innovative manufacturing capabilities. Employee appreciation events, school and community tours and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) related activities lead up to National Manufacturing Day 2018, held Oct. 5.

Northrop Grumman opens its doors to inspire the next generation of manufacturers and educate communities on the industry’s significant impact on the U.S. economy.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) celebrates Manufacturing Day annually to empower manufactures nationwide and change the perception of modern manufacturing. With this year’s theme as “Open Doors, Open Minds,” Northrop Grumman opens its doors to inspire the next generation of manufacturers and educate communities on the industry’s significant impact on the U.S. economy.

“Manufacturing Day celebrates the importance of modern manufacturing and encourages young, creative minds to pursue the growing opportunities in this field,” said Kathy Warden, president and chief operating officer, Northrop Grumman. “America’s manufacturers, innovators and creators are fundamental drivers in making our nation strong and prosperous. They turn the customer’s dreams into reality, especially in the aerospace and defense industry.”

Northrop Grumman is hosting approximately 170 events across 31 of its locations. These events include employee competitions and appreciation lunches; school tours and STEM related activities; panel discussions and guest speakers; and advanced manufacturing demonstrations.

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Northrop Grumman Expands Moss Point, Mississippi Facility, Announces New Manufacturing Jobs

Mon, 25 Jun 2018 18:30:00 GMT

MOSS POINT, Miss. – June 25, 2018 –Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC), joined by Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant and members of Mississippi’s federal and state delegations, officially opened a new operational area of their Moss Point facility today and announced new manufacturing jobs for the region.

Kevin Mitchell, sector vice president, global operations, and Governor Phil Bryant (MS) cut the ribbon on a new operational area for Northrop Grumman’s Moss Point facility alongside Jackson County Board of Supervisors President Randy Bosarge, Moss Point Mayor Mario King, John Murnane, vice president, global operations, Northrop Grumman, State Rep. Jeramey Anderson, and State Senator Michael Watson.

Elected officials joined local employees to cut the ribbon on the new machine shop section that delivers important capabilities at Northrop Grumman’s Moss Point manufacturing center. For more than a decade, Gulf Coast employees have manufactured rotary and fixed wing autonomous systems in Moss Point that support the U.S. and its global allies. Recent facility upgrades have allowed for new work on manned aircraft to come to the site, diversifying the portfolio of work and bringing new jobs to the region.

“Northrop Grumman has expanded our operations in Moss Point and grown our aerospace workforce at the site by more than 40 percent since 2017 through partnerships with the Mississippi Development Authority, the Jackson County Economic Development Foundation, the Jackson County Board of Supervisors, and the Jackson County Port Authority,” said Kevin Mitchell, sector vice president, global operations, Northrop Grumman. “We greatly appreciate the strong support from state and local partners and our federal delegation.”

In April 2004, Northrop Grumman broke ground in Moss Point with site construction beginning in 2005. In April 2006, Northrop Grumman contributed to aerospace industry growth in southern Mississippi when the ribbon was cut on the 101,000 square-foot facility. The company celebrated its 10 year anniversary at the site in 2016 and recently extended its lease adjacent to Trent Lott International Airport through 2026.

Last week, Northrop Grumman celebrated another important milestone in the state, with an event recognizing 50 years of supporting military customers and the Mississippi Gulf Coast community in Ocean Springs. Mississippi Lt Gov. Tate Reeves as well as local dignitaries and elected officials were on hand for the event recognizing Northrop Grumman’s Maritime Systems leadership in designing and developing combat management systems and electronic suites for over 50 ships in four major ship classes.

The Northrop Grumman facility at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, celebrates 50 years of designing and developing combat management systems and electronic suites for domestic and international customers.

“For five decades, Northrop Grumman’s presence in Mississippi has contributed to our worldwide presence and reputation in support of our warfighters and the defense of our nation and its allies,” said Northrop Grumman Ocean Springs Site Manager David Robertson. “I could not be more proud to lead the dedicated professionals at Northrop Grumman Maritime Systems in Ocean Springs.”

Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in autonomous systems, cyber, C4ISR, strike, and logistics and modernization to customers worldwide. Please visit news.northropgrumman.com and follow us on Twitter, @NGCNews, for more information.

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Northrop Grumman’s Naomi Hernandez and Tizoc Loza Honored at 2017 Great Minds in STEM HENAAC Conference

Mon, 23 Oct 2017 20:45:00 GMT

FALLS CHURCH, Va. – Oct. 23, 2017 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) employees Naomi Hernandez and Tizoc Loza were honored for being outstanding role models in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) this weekend at the 29th Annual Great Minds in STEM HENAAC Conference in Pasadena, California.

HENAAC recognizes the achievements and contributions of top professionals in the Hispanic community from academia, government, military and industry. They are innovators and STEM leaders

Naomi Hernandez, Northrop Grumman

who serve as role models to inspire young people to pursue technical careers with a focus on the Hispanic community. Award winners are peer reviewed and selected by a committee of representatives from industry, government, military and academic institutions.

Hernandez, a lead project engineer with Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, received a HENAAC Luminary Award. She has been actively involved with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) serving on the national board of directors, has received the SHPE Junipero Serra Award and the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility Young Hispanic Corporate Achiever Award. She works with Northrop Grumman’s Adelante employee resource group, the SHPE Central Florida chapter and mentors Hispanic engineering students. She earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s degree in systems engineering from Southern Methodist University.

Loza, the Northrop Grumman manager for global supplier diversity programs, received the HENAAC Santiago Rodriguez Diversity Award. He is responsible for the development and implementation of the Small Business Innovation Research Program, which supports the transfer of technology to small businesses and universities, and he manages the Northrop Grumman Mentor-Protégé program. He supports education working with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges/Universities and other Minority Institutions to identify scholarship awards, research and development programs, and subcontracting opportunities. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and international business from California State University, Long Beach, and a master’s with an emphasis in supply chain from Strayer University, Alexandria, Virginia.

Tizoc Loza, Northrop Grumman

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