"Swarm behaviors?" Alex couldn't refrain from interrupting him. "Sorry, please continue."
"Yes, precisely. We're looking to see if we could embed swarm intelligence into combat strategies. All right, let's go. Let's start with the first section, the module-and-component assembly."
They walked along a path marked by two yellow lines, delimiting the pedestrian safe zone. Dunwood was a tall man and walked fast. Alex could barely keep up on her high heels.
"Would you like some loaner boots for today? I am sure we can find a pair your size," Dunwood said, encouragingly.
"Yes, I would like some boots," she admitted, smiling.
Minutes later, she was able to trot happily, keeping up with Dunwood's wide steps without any problems.
They reached a glass wall extending over tens of yards, against the far left wall of the plant. Behind the glass walls, neatly dressed technicians wearing hairnets, lab coats, and anti-static bracelets, were seated at assembly tables covered in rubber mats. They were assembling or inspecting electronic circuits. Farther in the back, robotic assemblers were soldering components of circuit boards, feeding the technicians finished modules for them to inspect, then wrap in static-free packaging and set in output trays. Complex testing stations were operated with the same efficiency on some of the rubber-coated tables. The larger modules reaching these tables were set on testing stations, and panels with colored LED displays lit up, indicating the quality status of various circuits.
Alex became aware of the extended period of time she had spent looking through the windows at each type of operation. Dunwood stood right beside her, ready to answer questions.
"This is so fascinating, I lost track of time, I'm sorry."
"No problem, that's what we're here to do — show you the entire plant, top to bottom. It's a lot to absorb, so take your time."
"I think we can proceed," Alex said.
"Let's go to body-parts manufacturing then, and if you want to come back here after you've finished the tour, that's not going to be a problem."
"Thank you," Alex said, resuming her brisk walk beside Dunwood.
They entered a noisy, smelly area, where large machinery was producing body parts for the UAVs. Some parts she could easily recognize: wings, main body covers — top and bottom — and landing gear panel doors.
"These," Dunwood said, making a wide gesture toward a line of bulky machines, all equipped with computer monitors, "are compression-molding presses. These machines fabricate almost all parts in a UAV's body structure, including brackets and other similar smaller components. They can be compression, injection, and transfer presses. These over here," he pointed to a different set of machines, "are high precision vacuformers. They use a technology based on vacuum and high temperature to mold parts that have tolerances under ten microns. And these are micro-molding machines, which manufacture the smaller components we use, such as screws, nuts, bolts; all these are produced using extremely high pressures."
One of the micro-molding machines was spitting out oval-shaped components with an amazing speed.
"They are incredibly fast and accurate," Dunwood said, seeing what had attracted her attention. "We rarely use these fulltime, although every single one of them can mold multiple designs."
She approached a couple of machines as close as she dared. They were fascinating in their speed, precision, and automation. The manufacturing workflows were neatly organized and logically designed, and the entire plant astounded her with its highly optimized, efficient, smoothly running processes.
"Now let's proceed to assembly," Dunwood said, leading the way to the largest section of the plant. "In assembly, we have multiple lines. The GPS handheld and in-dash lines are here," he said, pointing to a rather small assembly line, operated in a corner by technicians wearing white lab coats. "The products are small, so they don't take a lot of space. We've adapted a system, invented for picking and packing in warehouses fulfilling large numbers of items, called 'pick-a-light' or 'pick-to-light,' for our assembly needs.
"Pick-a-light signals the human operator, by having lights go on and off on the shelving behind him, to indicate which items, and how many, need to be picked and packaged in the box that is traveling on the conveyor belt in front of him. We have adapted it to our assembly lines to integrate all stages of assembly into one line. On our assembly lines, there is no pre-assembly, assembly, QA, packing, and shipping. The entire flow covers all stages of the assembly, and the assembly workers are guided through the process by lights and LCD panels installed next to them, advising what the next part to install is and the next step to perform."
"Wow," Alex said, impressed. The line moved swiftly, workers picking parts off the shelves without hesitation, guided by lights that would come on and go off in harmony with their moves. "But they don't scan bar codes, so how does the system know when the part was picked off the shelf, and if it was the right one?"
"We have installed weight-sensitive panels on the shelves. If, for example, a component weighing precisely 12.7 grams should be picked next, the system watches for that particular change in shelf items weight. If it records a change by more or by less, the line comes to a stop."
"I understand, from what you are showing me, that quality is quite easy to control and achieve at high standards with this system in place, right?"
A frown clouded his wrinkled face.
"From an assembly perspective, yes. We can't go wrong in picking parts and modules. We could still make assembly errors, such as faulty soldering of modules and so on. However, most quality errors are coming from lower quality parts, such as chips and circuit boards. My money is on the circuit boards, because we thoroughly test the chips before installation."
"What would it take to increase the quality of the circuit boards?" Alex treaded carefully, knowing she was entering an area of high sensitivity for Dunwood.
"Money. Lots of it. We took so much cost out of the product, I am surprised it's not worse. You can only go so far, you know." His face was expressing sadness and a touch of anger.
"Who invented this system?" Alex changed direction.
"What system?"
"The pick-a-light for assembly. By the way, what's it called?"
"Oh… I don't know that it has a name."
"Who invented it? That's pretty darn brilliant."
"I did," Dunwood replied modestly. "I adapted pick-a-light for the assembly lines, it works now on most of them. The weighing is so precise that the line will stop even if we miss a label of only 12 milligrams."
"You should give it a name, you know. After all, it's your baby," Alex said, smiling.
"Maybe I will, we'll see. Over here, we have the RX5 assembly line. All the assembly is done by technicians, no assembly robots here. Technically, we use the same system to manage parts and control the quality of the assembly. The RX series are recon drones; they have no combat capabilities. They carry enhanced imaging equipment, not ordnance. On our right side, you can see the longest assembly line of all, dedicated to the CX series drones. The CXs are combat UAVs, or UCAVs, designed to carry significant amounts of ordnance depending on size, range, and payload. They also carry sensitive detection-and-imaging equipment, including visible spectrum and infrared cameras, and a satellite comlink."
Dunwood walked along the assembly line, from finish toward the start. He passed the finalized drones, in various stages of final assembly, until he reached a drone that was still missing the upper housing on its body.
"The reason why the UAV's body has this hump here, resembling the shape of the cockpit in some piloted aircraft, is because it's holding a satellite dish, specially designed to operate in flight. This here," he continued, sneaking his hand deep inside the open drone, "is the navigation system. It guides the drone just like your GPS guides you. This other one is the targeting module. It searches for targets, and when a drone locks on a target, this module lights green, signaling the weapons module the target lock, so it can launch the missiles. Nevertheless, it first asks for ground control's permission to launch. This here, this little black box, is the drone's brain. It communicates with ground control and interprets the communications received into mechanical actions, such as gear down, for example. It also confirms to the drone when to launch a missile. The rest is avionics, fuel tanks, hardpoint controls, and landing gear controls.