It’s just past 6:00 a.m. at the Hughes Shady Grove manufacturing facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland. And it’s already teeming with activity by the first shift—part of a workforce that is represented by more than 15 nationalities from regions across the globe, including China, Vietnam, India, West Africa, the Caribbean, North and South America, and Europe.
Shady Grove is part engineering lab and part manufacturing operation— both decidedly high tech. If engineering is the essence of Hughes, then manufacturing is its heartbeat—where products conceived by its brainpower meet the test of real-world production demands. Here is where design engineers and their manufacturing counterparts jointly finalize products for volume manufacturing, covering everything from component supplier selection, prototypes, and pilots, to product qualification, assembly, and testing. The 120,000-square-foot facility serves as the nerve center for millions of pieces of equipment every year, including broadband satellite terminals, network operations center racks and chassis, and mobile satellite gateways and related voice and data terminals. It also houses a repair center, and packages and ships products to enterprise, government, and consumer customers, as well as value added service providers, distributors, and resellers in over 100 countries.
A Day in the Life
A typical workday starts when the first shift arrives at 6:00 a.m. and ends when the second shift finishes at 11:00 p.m. But the facility can move readily into 24 x 7 mode when required, running three shifts a day, seven days a week, for peak production. “The key to our success here is our people,” said John McEwan, senior vice president of Manufacturing Operations for Hughes. “Our dedicated, highly skilled, and committed team allows us maximum flexibility while maintaining the highest quality for Hughes products.”
At workstations, assembly operators perform a wide array of intricate tasks such as assembling printed circuit boards, mounting boards into covers and castings, and testing, inspecting, and packaging products.
The manufacturing team is made up of a diverse group of professionals, including test, process, materials, and industrial engineers. In the background providing critical materials support are planners, buyers, and personnel in charge of stockrooms, shipping, and logistics. A core workforce of 200 is supplemented, as needed, with temporary contractors, providing the flexibility to ramp production up or down depending on business needs.
Hughes terminals, for example, are built on a flow line that produces one unit every 30 seconds. In any given week, the facility can churn out 28,000 terminal sets, or more than one million annually. More complex equipment such as network operations rack and chassis equipment, which is largely hand-built, can take two to three days. “Whatever we need to ship, we have the capability to build,” said McEwan. “It’s purely a question of what’s needed, when, and how many, and we produce it.”
By the Numbers
30 seconds — Time it takes to produce one Hughes terminal
28,000 — Number of terminals Hughes can produce in one week
1 million+ — Number of terminals Hughes can produce in one year
400+ — Suppliers in 26 countries on 5 continents
300+ — Customers in 82 countries that took delivery of Hughes equipment in 2007
1.5 million — Hughes terminals shipped to date |
Keeping It All Together
Keeping operations in sync in such an environment requires precise organization and excellent communication. According to McEwan, it’s essential to look after the little things. “Everything happens sequentially, one station to the next. If someone’s not sitting at his or her station, the process falls apart. That’s why excellent people, processes, procedures, and systems—along with a healthy dose of teamwork—are essentials.”
The In-house Advantage
Although broadband service may attract flashier headlines, designing and producing hardware remains an integral part of the Hughes business model and its competitive edge. The company considers both in-house manufacturing and outsourcing in Asia and Europe as essential to its continued success. The ability to manufacture its own products has given the company enormous advantages, including streamlined product development, faster turnaround for prototypes, and a shorter time to market. It also enables Hughes to efficiently manage costs by leveraging volume with that of its suppliers. But perhaps most importantly, in-house manufacturing allows Hughes to maintain maximum flexibility to react quickly to changes in the market.
Back at Shady Grove, it’s 6:00 a.m. of a new day and the beat goes on—with a talented workforce planning, building, and shipping Hughes equipment to enable better communications and improve the lives of people worldwide. |