Product Development & Mechanical Design

Our engineers have extensive design and fabrication experience involving flight hardware systems. Our technical approach to manufacturing flight hardware begins with capitalizing on the experience gained through years of successful launch vehicle development and flight-testing. These same flight-proven engineering processes can be implemented to support your program.

We have over 30 years of experience in the fabrication of flight hardware. Our manufacturing experience covers many areas of primary and secondary structure fabrication, fastening techniques, and material processes and controls. Our technical approach to manufacturing flight hardware also includes evaluating the most cost-effective and efficient methods of fabrication. These fabrication methods must meet all of the design requirements, including the dynamic environments the structure will experience during its lifecycle. These fabrication methods must also meet the overall cost and schedule objectives of the program.

As a standard operating procedure, Colley Aerospace prepares design fabrication plans, which describe the processes, schedules, testing, inspection, and delivery of the hardware. Typically, these plans are submitted to the customer for review and approval before fabrication is to commence. The fabrication plan reflects all significant manufacturing actions from contract award to acceptance and delivery of the end items to the customer. The manufacturing plan will include, as a minimum: (1) a description of all significant processes used to fabricate and assemble the end items, (2) the manufacturing schedule showing procurement and production lead times, assembly sequences, and milestone schedule dates through acceptance and delivery of the last end item, and (3) a list of known or potential manufacturing risk items. Also included in this fabrication plan will be details of the procurement activities associated with this effort. The procurement plan will include, as a minimum, descriptions of the processes and requirements for each procurement, assessments of suppliers, make or buy criteria, identification of long lead and risk items, and an assessment of the program schedule and possible impacts to the end item delivery.

Over the past thirty years, Colley Aerospace has accumulated thousands of hours of experience using various CAD software packages:

• CREO
• CATIA
• SOLIDWORKS
• UNIGRAPHICS
• AUTOCAD

If you are looking for expertise in one of the areas listed below, please contact us to discuss your project and design needs.

• Computer-Aided Design (CAD)
• Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE)
• Primary Structure Design
• Secondary Structure Design
• Solid Modeling
• Surface Modeling
• Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerance (GD&T) Expertise
• Level I to Level III Drawing Creation
• ICD Implementation and Control
• Rapid Prototyping
• Reverse Engineering
• Design Review Support (SRR, PRD, CDR, FRR, etc.)