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In August 2024, a lightweight experimental airplane took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California and made aeronautics history. The plane, the Model 437 technology demonstrator, was designed to one day fly autonomously. Yet what made the achievement unique was how aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman developed its wings—using a fully connected digital ecosystem that enabled groundbreaking designs at unprecedented speed. The aircraft went from conception to design to test flight in a record time for the aerospace and defense industry, just 27 months.
For years, aerospace engineers, technicians, and manufacturing teams have had to work in sequence, often in silos, pausing the development of a new plane or rocket if they ran into an obstacle. They couldn’t move forward until the issue was fixed and reworked across the entire design, manufacturing, and testing process. Now, Northrop Grumman has streamlined this process through an advanced digital ecosystem that seamlessly connects employees, customers, global supply chains, and even business teams. This ecosystem ensures that all stakeholders collaborate using the same real-time data throughout a project’s entire lifecycle.
“What’s unique about our digital ecosystem is that it’s holistic,” says Jeremy Knupp, Chief Information and Digital Officer at Northrop Grumman. “By connecting everyone on the same continuous digital thread, we enable seamless collaboration, empowering teams to work and innovate together more efficiently and at a faster pace than ever before.”
In aerospace, data is key for innovation.
To deliver advanced technologies faster, Northrop Grumman drew on its decades of data to create a new type of workflow, one that unites not just its R&D teams but every stakeholder across the company in a connected digital ecosystem powered by a robust data strategy.
“Data is the heart and foundation of our digital ecosystem,” Knupp says. “For us, the digital thread represents the seamless integration of the virtual and the physical world, one that securely takes advantage of new advances in digital models.”
Northrop Grumman began laying the foundation for its digital ecosystem in the 1980s, when it began digitizing its systems and data to support the B-2 Spirit program. The initiative accelerated over the past decade with complex programs like the B-21 Raider and Sentinel. They continue to invest in digital capabilities across the enterprise to assist in rapidly designing, building, testing and sustaining programs for our customers.
As a result, the company’s once-linear production process has been revolutionized so that all aspects of a project can move forward simultaneously, reducing time and cost while improving final outcomes.
All prototypes still undergo rigorous physical benchmark tests and certifications. But digital simulations and modeling now ensure that by the time a prototype reaches physical testing, it is significantly closer to final readiness. This approach not only accelerates development but also enhances sustainability. Northrop Grumman is already realizing the value of this approach on its programs, making changes early in the process to reduce rework, enhance speed, and deliver better products with lower costs.
“We’ve created digital non-linear, bidirectional threads,” Knupp says. “Now, we can operate more items faster and more seamlessly through all phases of a project in collaboration with customers and partners.”
Model 437 was a trailblazing example of the digital ecosystem at work.
The full-sized airplane was designed to carry 2,000 pounds up to 25,000 feet. Traditionally, various teams would work sequentially, designing, analyzing, testing, iterating, and evolving the project in stages. Challenges would cause pauses, requiring consultations with customers and suppliers, followed by additional testing to ensure viability.
Within its digital ecosystem, however, Northrop Grumman brought all stakeholders together from day one.
Everyone worked from the same real-time data, enabling seamless collaboration and rapid progress. Engineers created digital models that were shared with technicians, who used AR goggles to project the designs onto physical components, following step-by-step instructions to construct each piece precisely on the production floor. Stakeholders were kept in the loop, giving feedback throughout the lifecycle, turning traditionally time-consuming milestone reviews into efficient formalities.
Throughout the process, feedback loops allowed all stakeholders access to the model’s data, where a change can ripple across the thread and be analyzed in real time for accuracy by all team members, positively impacting quality, affordability, producibility and reliability. A digital twin of Model 437 ensured that exact parts could be sourced quickly, improving long-term sustainment.
The results were groundbreaking. Engineering rework on a first-time build is typically 15 to 20 percent. For the Model 437 wings, it was less than one percent. The digital ecosystem also reduced manufacturing rework time by more than 50 percent.
“This was a first-of-its-kind demonstration of a digitally connected factory via the digital ecosystem that improves development speed and production quality while driving down costs,” Knupp says. “Every lesson we learn on these programs gets applied to the next one, so it’s continuously modernizing and increasing our digital capabilities.”
The true power of the digital ecosystem is its ability to enable collaboration by standardizing tools and processes across an entire life cycle of the product. This ecosystem can be tailored to meet the needs of specific products, unlocking faster innovations while also creating opportunities for employees to work across disciplines, learn new skills, and advance their capabilities.
Standardized processes allow employees to transition between roles or departments more easily, reducing learning curves.
“Top talent chooses to work here due to our values and how our digital ecosystem enables employees to more easily move around, take new assignments, and achieve their career goals,” Knupp says.
The digital ecosystem also provides Northrop Grumman with a comprehensive and detailed view of its workforce, ensuring the company can allocate the right talent for the right program.
“This gives us the power to unlock the entire company to focus on a challenge,” Knupp says. “It’s what I call functional fusion.”
Another added benefit of Northrop Grumman’s digital ecosystem is its efficiencies and cost-saving systems for customers and partners. Suppliers can receive instant inventory updates, eliminating the need for data entry. And customers can review project changes in real time, run simulations in the digital ecosystem, and quickly assess the impact on cost and schedule.
“A system performance impact like this on a complex project used to take nine months,” Knupp says. “Now it’s down to one week.”
Going forward, the digital ecosystem will continue to enhance communication and efficiency across all project aspects, with AI assisting in repetitive tasks and complex data analytics.
“Pioneering is in our DNA,” Knupp says. “Digital transformation is all about connecting, collaborating, and standardizing to innovate for invention, as well as empower all employees across our day-to-day work.”
