Upon accepting her induction into the TCT Hall of Fame in 2024, Melissa Orme, Vice President, Materials & Structures at Boeing Technology Innovation, talked about being given the freedom to structure Boeing’s additive manufacturing (AM) activity to enable accelerated adoption and solve difficult engineering challenges, all the while reducing costs and schedule. Almost two years on, the aerospace giant may have its best example of that vision to date.
Boeing has shared its application of 3D printing to deliver a six-month reduction in production time, from print to final assembly, for solar arrays. It’s a first for the technology and marks a 50% improvement compared to current composite build up cycle times associated with a typical solar array wing program. In doing so, Boeing has not only removed a chunk of manufacturing time from the parts of a satellite which typically incur the longest leads times, but also reduced its reliance on suppliers. It can now, Orme tells TCT, print quickly and assemble even faster.
