Leroy Grumman and Jack Northrop, two American visionaries, shared a passion for technology and innovation, always striving to be at the forefront of what’s next. Today, Northrop Grumman continues to lead in advanced manufacturing and cutting-edge innovation, embodying the pioneering spirit of its founders.
“Our company’s foundation is rooted in unwavering drive to pioneer, push boundaries and innovate,” said Todd Szallay, director, advanced manufacturing and operations, Northrop Grumman. “We are now entering a new era of advanced manufacturing, delivering some of the most advanced capabilities as we continue to push the envelope.”
Northrop Grumman has a rich heritage of manufacturing at scale. Grumman employees lowering a Grumman F4F Wildcat engine to plane in the 1940s. (Photo Credit: Northrop Grumman)
Disruption at Scale
For decades, the company has adopted disruptive manufacturing techniques and technology to build the most capable systems and platforms with the most advanced and cost-effective way.
“We continue to disrupt ourselves,” said Szallay. “By pushing ourselves to think differently and reinvent our manufacturing processes, we unearth new innovations and deliver them at a rapid pace.”
The company’s advanced factories employ the latest capabilities, including additive manufacturing, automation and digital models and data. With 30 million square feet of manufacturing space, the company also uses flexible manufacturing techniques to reconfigure spaces at speed for different product lines.
Northrop Grumman engineers work with an additively manufactured subcarrier in the grasp of a collaborative robot. (Photo Credit: Northrop Grumman)
The company’s size and scale drives rapid adoption of efficiencies through wide-spread knowledge sharing across portfolios and programs. Before metal is machined to build an aircraft, propel a spacecraft or fly at hypersonic speeds, the manufacturing floor can be mapped out digitally to set up build time for success. Manufacturing lines are designed to optimize speed, mass throughput and room to grow to meet customer demand. Across programs, this increases cost efficiencies and accelerates the speed of production.
“Instead of developing one-off capabilities, we are standardizing best practices across our enterprise to get it right the first time with risk reduction, advanced design, and digital simulation,” said Szallay. “We have the scale to bring forward advanced techniques across our portfolios to enhance product quality.”
Digital Thread on the Shop Floor
The company’s digital ecosystem comes to life on the manufacturing floor. Northrop Grumman has invested over $2 billion in infrastructure and development for its enterprise-wide digital ecosystem, allowing programs to iterate and evaluate designs thousands of times. This single source of truth provides cost efficiencies and saves time by showing how each piece of the system will perform, be produced and be maintained.
“We are able to design a capability or platform in a digital model with all of its data and subsystems and then bring that same model to the shop floor,” said Szallay. “With augmented reality and digital work instructions, the model is at the technician’s fingertips, replacing the back and forth of examining drawings while also optimizing our processes with artificial intelligence to accelerate speed.”
A Northop Grumman engineer wears augmented reality goggles while working on E-2D. (Photo Credit: Northrop Grumman)
The foundation of innovation, pushing of boundaries and creating incredible technology is thriving across Northrop Grumman and its manufacturing. This culture helps the company build the most sophisticated, secure and reliable systems for America and its allies.
With nearly 100,000 employees and over 30 million square feet of manufacturing space – more than 500 football fields – Northrop Grumman has the capacity, scale, and agility to drive innovation at unprecedented speeds. The company’s manufacturing approaches do more than just produce; they accelerate and enhance the entire process from design and development to production and testing. Northrop Grumman has invested in U.S. infrastructure, R&D, its workforce, and its supply chain to deliver today and tomorrow’s national security needs.
