Aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin has gone live with a new integrated MES for its Skunk Works advanced development facility at Pasadena, in California. The Skunk Works is famed for the development of a number of aircraft including the U-2, SR-71, F-117, F-22 and F-35. The new MES integrateds design, PLM, and ERP systems into a manufacturing execution system.

The new integrated MES is a product of manufacturing software company iBaset. The new installation at Skunk Works went live at the Pasadena campus with zero customisation required in eight months. Future sites are expected to go live faster.

Lockheed Martin’s iBASEt MES deployment is designed to provide digital continuity across the company’s manufacturing engineering, process planning, shop floor execution, and quality management operations. Over the coming years, iBASEt’s MES will be deployed across multiple Lockheed Martin sites.

“Our digital continuity strategy consolidates multiple existing systems into a single platform, allowing for the necessary retirement of many outdated legacy systems,” explained Brad Leech, Senior Manager, MES Implementation at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. “The improved capabilities of the system allows our team to quickly adapt, delivering more value to our customers.”

“It has been exciting to work with Lockheed Martin along their digital thread journey. Together, we have redefined how a successful MES solution can be deployed within the complex discrete aerospace and defense manufacturing industry,” said Naveen Poonian, CEO and President at iBASEt. “In times of change when facing extreme challenges, leaders rise to the occasion and innovate to take the industry to the next level – we are now experiencing this firsthand and have learned a great deal as part of the process.”