Lockheed Martin Adds New Additive Manufacturing Machines to Texas Facility

December 4, 2024

Lockheed Martin recently added some new additive manufacturing machines to its facility in Grand Prairie, Texas that includes large-format, laser powder bed fusion machines.

Lockheed Martin recently added 16,000-square-feet of new additive manufacturing space to their facility located in Grand Prairie, Texas. This expansion includes some of the industry’s largest format, multi-laser machines, as well as heat treatment and inspection equipment that enables rapid development and production of AM parts across the corporation.

“We continue to invest in AM technology to provide value for our customers in a way that empowers our engineers to innovate and rapidly integrate new product designs and capabilities to the production floor,” said Tom Carrubba, Vice President of Production Operations at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “This allows us to create affordable and modular designs that can simplify both high and low-volume production processes.”

Transforming Product Design and Development

The expansion leverages one of our existing machining hubs and supports our customers’ immediate and future product needs across Lockheed Martin and drives continued AM growth in the industry.

“As part of our 1LMX digital transformation initiative, we are implementing AM in the early phases of our new product designs as a technical risk reduction tool,” said Hector Sandoval, a Lockheed Martin Fellow. “Other benefits of AM include improved product performance, as well as reduced development and lead time of our product portfolio.”

A hydraulic manifold 3-D-printed part. The team leveraged the design freedom afforded by additive manufacturing to redesign a part that was traditionally machined from a large block of aluminum. Creating more direct and better flowing pathways between hydraulic connections increases performance while achieving significant weight savings. (Image: Lockheed Martin)

The machines used in our facilities can produce intricate geometries and lightweight structures which reduce machining operations, lead time and material waste by manufacturing near finished parts. Additionally, AM allows for the creation of concepts that were previously unattainable and increasing capacity and agility with our supply chain partners supporting a more robust industrial base.

“Using this state-of-the-art, large platform AM technology at Lockheed Martin enables us to rapidly iterate and manufacture all of our products, resulting in savings and design freedom for all of our customers,” said Brian Kaplun, a Lockheed Martin Fellow. “AM lives in the digital world and this allows us to support our customers in a far more nimble and responsive fashion than if we were using traditional design and manufacturing methods.”

The digital nature of AM enables manufacturers to precisely control the production process, ensuring high levels of accuracy and consistency and resulting in significant benefits in repeatability and qualified processes for our customers. Additionally, AM designs can be iterated, optimized and produced more efficiently than traditional manufacturing methods, reducing time and cost while ensuring high-quality parts.

Some Lockheed Martin products such as Mako, pictured here, have implemented additive manufacturing technology. (Image: Lockheed Martin)

AM in Practice

For example, in developing the multi-mission Mako™ hypersonic missile, engineers used AM to make guidance housing and tail fin parts. They demonstrated that these critical assemblies met requirements at a fraction of the cost - a staggering 1/10th - and reduced production time, making it 10 times faster and cheaper compared to conventional subtractive methods. In a customer space where agility, speed and affordability are king, AM is helping to move the needle.

Lockheed has also implemented AM technology on many new and legacy programs such as printing F-35 simulator cockpits and components on GMLRS .

By using a model-based engineering approach and leveraging AM expertise, we redesigned a GMLRS antenna assembly test unit, reducing the number of parts. This enabled cost savings per unit and reduced months off our production schedule driving solutions faster and more affordably.

There are significant AM opportunities in operations on other Lockheed production programs. This may include greater cost and schedule savings (from years, to months, to weeks). The ability to produce much larger structures with these AM systems is a competitive advantage against near-peer threats and provides unique solutions for national security.

AM also enables technical and supply chain-risk reduction. By using AM as replacements for items such as brazements, heat exchangers, castings, etc., we can consolidate parts and reduce the product design phase and manufacturing lead time.

Investing in the Future of AM

In 2022, the White House announced AM Forward, a voluntary agreement designed to increase resiliency and innovation in U.S.-based supply chains and manufacturing. Lockheed Martin committed to conducting research to improve AM performance, drive critical AM development standards, and further participate with academia in workforce development and college programs.

Following the launch of AM Forward, Lockheed Martin announced a strategic investment with Sintavia to explore AM technology opportunities, leverage in-house capabilities and external investments.

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