Lockheed Martin’s Lufkin factory in Texas has connected surface mount technology (SMT) machines of all key types using the IPC-CFX standard to Aegis’ FactoryLogix MES platform, providing IIoT data through a single standard language.

According to Aegis, the employment of IPC-CFX integrated with FactoryLogix turns the Lufkin facility into Lockheed Martin’s first ultra-secure smart factory. Lufkin builds all stages of guided high altitude missiles such as Patriot, THAAD and TACMS, from PCB and component manufacture through to final assembly and testing,

The adoption of IPC-CFX by Lockheed Martin’s key machine vendors, with qualification of their support for CFX by IPC, as well as the utilisation of IPC-2581 design data for reference during setup, has eliminated the need for data in other formats, including paper, thus eliminating needless exposure of critical data, according to Aegis.

“There are so many opportunities for the enhancement of manufacturing through the Smart use of data, which FactoryLogix MES provides for us,” said Jarrod Webb, Manufacturing Robotics Engineer, Lockheed Martin. “We require stringent security for our manufacturing and product data. The unique nature of the IPC CFX standard, with qualified “plug and play” capability, means that we now have just one, single manufacturing data protocol, with a built-in common language, generated natively by machines, greatly simplifying our manufacturing IT requirements, avoiding the risk and costs associated with third-party middleware, that other machine connection methods represent. Only in this way could we achieve our data-driven, Smart manufacturing goals, differentiating us by contributing significantly to the success and sustainability of our manufacturing business unit, reflected by additional value for our customers.”

“Lockheed Martin’s Lufkin facility sets the bar for Smart, data-driven manufacturing in security-conscious sectors of the industry, demonstrating the value of interoperability of data from all vendors securely connected to our IIoT-based FactoryLogix MES platform. Lockheed Martins’ enduring commitment to establish collaborative Smart, Industry 4.0 data exchange with CFX, and utilisation of advanced MES solutions, is an inspiration to manufacturers and machine vendors throughout the industry. CFX usage has meant zero custom machine adapter development in this deployment, it just works,” said Jason Spera, CEO, and Co-Founder, Aegis Software.