Padok Brasilien: Visit at Brazilian Missile manufacturer Mectron Monday 20110228

On Monday the 28th, the last day of the Sao Paolo visit, the Swedish Production Academy visited Mectron in the afternoon. Mectron is a Brazilian company specialized in design, development and manufacturing of high-tech products in both military and civilian sectors and some of their customers are the Brazilian Army, Navy and Air Force as well as the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer. Mectron has three business units in which they operate: Defense, Sensors & Avionics and Space and today they have about 340 highly specialized staff of which many are dedicated to R&D activities. Regarding the missiles, the time from start of product development to production differs between the products. However, 10 years seems to apply for several of the products which in a way give reason to the pricing of the missiles ($100k to $850k).

Within the Defense Business Unit smart weapons are developed and manufactured. Some of the products are MAA-1 which is a short range air-to-air missile, MAR-1 which is an air-to-surface missile and MSS 1.2 which is a laser guided surface-to-surface missile. The Sensors and Avionics Business Unit develops and produces aeronautical airborne equipment such as radar systems for both military and civil aircrafts. The Space Business Unit develops and produces i.e. subsystems and equipments for satellites.

The production facility of Mectron is very small today, mainly adapted to manufacturing of prototypes. Mectron focuses on the high-tech part of production themselves, such as managing the electronics within the front sensors. The machining for instance is almost 100% subcontracted whereas the integration of the parts is close to 100% done at Mectron. The “active integration” (where the entire missile is put together) is done at another Mectron facility 70km away from the HQ since they’re not allowed to handle the warheads due to restrictions/regulations.

During late 2011 Mectron plan to build a new production facility connected to the HQ in order to increase the production. Today their future way of working within their production system, similar to i.e. “Toyota Production System”, is under construction. Within this preparation for small to medium serial production some of the highlighted focuses to manage are visual management, process standard and deviation, people qualification and to strive for a continuous flow/push system.