Dirac and Hadrian are working to allow aerospace and defense customers to produce weapons, cutting-edge defensive capabilities, and commercial products at speed and scale.
TORRANCE, Calif. and NEW YORK—Dirac, a developer of assembly automation software, and Hadrian, an advanced manufacturing company on a mission to build the factories of the future, are partnering to “enable aerospace and defense companies to more easily tackle the challenge of manufacturing, assembly, and production at scale,” according to a release from Hadrian.
The integration will create a first-of-its-kind enterprise platform for “model-based manufacturing,” a new digital twin-inspired paradigm designed to bring real-world manufacturability context and tribal knowledge earlier into the design process. Described as user-agnostic, the platform is said to enable “any aerospace and defense company to accelerate all parts of the manufacturing lifecycle, from prototyping to large-scale production and assembly.”
Hadrian stated in the release that fielding U.S. weapons systems requires what the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) called the “capacity to produce those capabilities at speed and scale.” It also stated that according to the National Defense Industrial Strategy, “many elements of the traditional DIB [Defense Industrial Base] have yet to adopt advanced manufacturing technologies, as they struggle to develop business cases for needed capital investment.”
The Hadrian-Dirac partnership is aiming to bring the power of advanced manufacturing technology into reach for established companies, as well as new entrants.
Hadrian’s stated mission is to transform the U.S. industrial base by building a series of highly automated precision component factories to enable space and defense manufacturers to get parts 10 times faster and halve the cost of making rockets, satellites, jets, and drones. Process engineering, artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning (ML), and robotics are central to the company’s efforts to help scale the operations of companies within the U.S. industrial and manufacturing base.
“By harnessing the latest in automation technology, artificial intelligence, and precision engineering, Hadrian scales advanced machining to support customers in space, transportation, and defense,” the company said in the release.
Dirac’s flagship product, BuildOS, automatically generates precise assembly work instructions directly from CAD files, enabling companies to quickly transition from design to production. Hadrian’s production platform will integrate with Dirac’s to make what the companies say will be a “powerful model-based manufacturing platform any aerospace and defense company can use to supercharge its production.”
“Every company in the U.S. Defense Industrial Base should have the ability to rapidly scale production and assembly to meet our near-peer threats,” said Hadrian CEO Chris Power, in the release. “This partnership with Dirac will accelerate Hadrian’s ability to partner with companies as they bridge the gap from prototyping to scaled production…The DoD has made it clear it wants industry to enable companies to ‘make it at scale,’ and Hadrian is here to support companies on that journey.”
As part of the partnership, Dirac and Hadrian will continue to enhance BuildOS’s capabilities by developing new features to support even more complex assembly processes and integrating real-time data analytics to optimize production. Hadrian stated that it will “continue to expand its factory automation platform, exploring new technologies and methodologies that can be integrated with Dirac’s software to further strengthen America’s industrial base.”
“This partnership with Hadrian is about more than just technology; it’s about securing America’s future,” said Filip Aronshtein, CEO of Dirac. “We look forward to supporting new DoD programs with our digital platform, as well as assisting legacy programs to create model-based work instructions of their assembly and production processes to push the entire U.S. Defense Industrial Base forward.”