2022 North American Space Summit (NASS)

The Seraph team was recently invited to participate in a panel discussion at the fifth annual North American Space Summit in Traverse City, MI. The summit featured more than 30 educational and networking sessions for attendees to learn about the next generation of space-enabled communications, space supply chains, funding sources and more.

Keynote Speaker.

U.S. Space Force Director of Staff Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, who served as a keynote speaker for the fifth annual NASS, spoke for more than an hour about the goals of her agency. The three-star general noted she “fully supported” the collaboration between commercial entities and the government to help the Space Force achieve its mission and goals. Armagno is the only person to have commanded both launch wings in the U.S. Air Force and is the first woman general officer commissioned in the Space Force, a new branch of the armed services focused on organizing, training and equipping the U.S. to conduct global space operations. She is responsible for coordinating policies, plans, positions and procedure issues for Space Force staff.

Armagno encouraged MAMA members to develop new products and lead commercial innovations in space that members could, in turn, sell to the Space Force and companies working to help the agency achieve its goals.

Growing threats from the cyber domain.

The Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association (MAMA) plans to spearhead the development of cybersecurity standards for space satellites and systems. MAMA Executive Director Gavin Brown said the organization was spurred to action after experts in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and quantum information science presenting at the NASS outlined the growing threats from the cyber domain.

“The NASS brought to light how broad and pervasive the cyber-threats are within the space domain, sparking significant debate on how these growing threats could negatively affect our manufacturers. Through SECAM, MAMA will take a leadership role in developing the first aerospace standards for consideration by NIST, which will qualify suppliers and enable them to do business with the federal government much more easily.”

– Gavin Brown – Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association

Technological innovation.

The pace of change and technological innovation in the Aerospace industry has presented a lot of growth opportunities for manufacturers and thought leaders to thrive in.

“The conceptual discussions during the summit were fascinating and the progress being made was impressive. Ultimately, those concepts have to be turned into products which require manufacturing, in an environment which has increasing challenges. It was an honor to be part of the panel to discuss those challenges and their potential solutions. The feedback from the audience members suggested that there is a lot of interest in determining how to protect manufacturing from the supply chain, labor and economic challenges we’ve experienced over the past few years.”

– Wade E. Phillips – Seraph

Getting past today’s supply chain challenges.

Within Aerospace & Aviation, the challenges are very similar to other industries throughout the world. Supply chain management is continuing to be an issue. Companies who focused on operational efficiencies during the pandemic are more likely to overcome supply chain issues when compared to the alternative. This information has now made more companies focus on enhancing their operational efficiency, turning to Seraph for their experience and guidance.

“We are seeing aerospace encounter the same issues and same repercussions of the black swan events as all other industries at this time. The need for supply chain and talent issues are here as well as the need for strong leadership.”

– Jamie Headley – Seraph

In summary, supply chain performance continues to cause production issues across the entire manufacturing process. Similar to automotive, we know that the aerospace and defense manufacturing sector is experiencing critical challenges that often get overlooked, but need to be addressed to achieve optimal production levels. If you have any questions or would like to speak with Seraph about your industry manufacturing challenges, please contact us today.

Co-Authors: