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Anduril Industries on Thursday said it entered a strategic partnership with precision components manufacturer Hadrian to provide key components and parts for the company’s autonomous systems at dramatically reduced lead times, allowing Anduril to scale and accelerate production of solutions for its national security customers.
The partnership will reduce lead time on machined parts by up to 50 percent, an Anduril spokeswoman told Defense Daily. These subcomponents are for various Anduril systems such as the Ghost small unmanned aircraft system and autonomous Sentry Towers used for surveillance for border security and force protection applications, she said.
Hadrian, a venture-backed company based in California, says it is building the next-generation of software-driven, automated, efficient factories to build precision parts for its customers in the space, defense, semiconductor, energy, and medical device industries in days, not months, helping them to produce end products 10 times faster and 50 percent cheaper. The small manufacturer also says it is on a mission to rapidly scale production and strengthen the U.S. supply chain.
For Anduril, lining up Hadrian as a manufacturing partner aligns with the company’s mantra of being a disruptor in the defense industry.
“The defense manufacturing base cannon supply critical assets to the DoD or our allies within a relevant timeframe,” Matt Grimm, chief operating officer and co-founder of Anduril, said in statement. “Anduril recognizes that deterrence begins on the factory floor, and so we design for manufacturing at the beginning of our development process. As our partnership with Hadrian evolves, we’ll continue to find ways to increase the pace at which we can deliver components and capabilities at scale, and ensure we’re able to mitigate interruptions in supply chains.”
Hadrian has about 100 employees and operates two factories in California. The company has many aerospace customers but can’t disclose them due to non-disclosure agreements, Chris Power, CEO and founder of Hadrian, told Defense Daily.
Hadrian has already started to build parts for Anduril, the spokeswoman said.
Anduril, which is also based in California, also has an artificial intelligence-based open systems software platform called Lattice that enables large-scale integration and use of autonomous systems across the battlespace.
