Research and Development at Spirit AeroSystems? Yes, we do that.
Not many tier-one aerospace suppliers can point to investments in research and development. But Spirit AeroSystems isn’t the average tier-one manufacturing company. Just as the company continues to refine and revolutionize internal processes, supply chain management and integrated team protocols, Spirit is focused on areas of research and development that specifically address current customer needs and anticipate challenges for commercial and defense programs of the future.
Our first priority is always to our current customers to support production. On the commercial side of the business, our improved processes and applied technologies are aimed at enabling Spirit to meet increased production rates. It’s true that innovation drives everything we do — the research and development we do to be successful must be replicated and applied on the factory floor for the benefit of our customers … everything from new tooling technology to out-of-autoclave composite fabrication. On the defense side, research and development helps drive our design for manufacturability focus, providing rapid prototyping of new or modified hardware and helping to apply commercial best practices and innovations to the defense sector.
The second area of focus is on the future of aerospace manufacturing. We’re actively developing new concepts, designs and solutions that will help build next-generation and next-next generation aircraft. Our team has identified seven areas of distinctive capability that represent major technological advances and innovation that will define the aircraft of tomorrow – all being developed here at Spirit
Innovation is the key to meeting today’s challenges and providing tomorrow’s solutions, and we’re proud to say that the Spirit research and development team is where innovation begins.
— Eric Hein, Spirit AeroSystems, Senior Director of Research & Development
