Latest news with #KenBedingfield
Business Wire
22-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
L3Harris Marks Major Milestone for New Solid Rocket Motor ‘Factories of the Future' in Virginia
CULPEPER, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) has broken ground on the construction of five new solid rocket motor facilities in Virginia that will boost production to support key national defense programs. The new facilities will incorporate modular factory design, robotic flex cells, automated, progressive casting and improved handling and assembly throughout the production line. 'L3Harris' growth in Virginia is another solid example of how we're expanding our rocket motor manufacturing infrastructure to support the nation's defense propulsion needs,' said Ken Bedingfield, President, Aerojet Rocketdyne, L3Harris. 'Made possible through a Defense Production Act Title III cooperative agreement, this expansion will complement an existing 256,000 square feet of manufacturing space, supporting some of the most advanced propulsion research and production in the world.' L3Harris' site in Virginia hosts the company's Center of Excellence for Propellant Research and Small to Medium-sized Solid Rocket Motor Production. The expansion includes a 12,000 square foot, state-of-the-art solid rocket motor cast and assembly facility, as well as a control room, facilities to support mixing and grinding operations and upgrades to the site's motor testing capabilities. The consolidated cast and assembly building will centralize production of a critical program under one roof, reducing the distance motors travel during manufacturing by 90%. 'L3Harris' continued expansion in Virginia underscores the Commonwealth's pivotal role in safeguarding our nation's security,' said Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. 'With a world-class workforce, cutting-edge infrastructure, and a strategic East Coast location, Virginia offers the ideal environment for defense and aerospace leaders like L3Harris to grow and drive innovation for the future.' 'I'm proud of Virginia's continued leadership in the defense sector, which is made possible in part through crucial investments like L3Harris' new solid rocket motor facilities,' said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. 'I'll keep looking for opportunities to support Virginia's robust defense industry—a core pillar of Virginia's economy and a key component of our military readiness.' 'Thrilled to see L3Harris expand its presence in Virginia and continue to strengthen our defense industrial base,' said Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va. 'This investment in Orange County will support the world-class research and manufacturing coming out of Virginia, while also creating valuable jobs for American workers.' 'This investment by L3Harris underscores how the Seventh Congressional District, and Virginia overall, remains a great place to build systems critical to our national security. This project will yield exactly the kind of smart, strategic growth we need in the Seventh District to strengthen our national security, rebuild America's defense industrial base, and build key components for munitions such as the Javelin,' said Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va. 'As an Army veteran and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I will prioritize supporting projects that ensure our service members have the tools they need to keep our country safe — while creating more good jobs right here in the Seventh.' 'Investment in key capabilities for domestic defense production is integral to our efforts to continue to support warfighter requirements,' said Greg Davis, Acting Director, Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy. 'It's also an important component to the Department's priority of revitalizing the defense industrial base.' L3Harris is also modernizing and expanding its solid rocket motor production in two other states. The company is constructing new solid rocket motor facilities in Camden, Arkansas, and is transitioning production of inert components for critical missile systems to align with the sites' core competencies in Huntsville, Alabama. The company is already ramping up production due to digital process improvements as well as new tooling and equipment. About L3Harris Technologies L3Harris Technologies is the Trusted Disruptor in the defense industry. With customers' mission-critical needs always in mind, our employees deliver end-to-end technology solutions connecting the space, air, land, sea and cyber domains in the interest of national security. Visit for more information. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect management's current expectations, assumptions and estimates of future performance and economic conditions. Such statements are made in reliance upon the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results and future trends to differ materially from those matters expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Statements about future capacity are forward-looking and involve risks and uncertainties. L3Harris disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Business Wire
28-04-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
L3Harris to Present at Three Upcoming Investor Conferences
MELBOURNE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) Chief Financial Officer and Aerojet Rocketdyne President Ken Bedingfield will present at Barclays Americas Select Franchise Conference in London at 8:30 a.m. local (3:30 a.m. ET) on Tuesday, May 6. The presentation will stream live on the L3Harris website, with a recording available after the event. Bedingfield will also present at the Wolfe Research Conference at 12:50 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 22, in New York City. The presentation will stream live on the L3Harris website, with a recording available after the event. L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher E. Kubasik and Bedingfield will present at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference at 9 a.m. ET on Thursday, May 29, in New York City. The presentation will stream live on the L3Harris website, with a recording available after the event. About L3Harris Technologies L3Harris Technologies is the Trusted Disruptor in the defense industry. With customers' mission-critical needs always in mind, our employees deliver end-to-end technology solutions connecting the space, air, land, sea and cyber domains in the interest of national security. Visit for more information.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Aerojet's president talks new approach to making rocket motors
Aerojet Rocketdyne supplies one of the most critical parts of a munition — solid rocket motors — and since L3Harris acquired the company roughly two years ago its goal has been to ramp up production to meet the skyrocketing demand for tactical and strategic missiles. As part of that quest, Aerojet broke ground earlier this year to build four new solid rocket motor production facilities at its campus in Camden, Arkansas. Defense News sat down earlier this month with the dual-hatted Ken Bedingfield, who is both L3Harris' chief financial officer and Aerojet Rocketdyne's president, to discuss the rapidly expanding solid rocket motor industry and how the company is looking to innovate by changing the way it manufactures and partners to deliver capability. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. With the demand of solid rocket motors being as high as they are, where do you think the company will go in terms of building capacity in the next five years? It's been almost two years since we acquired Aerojet Rocketdyne, and there was a set of delinquent deliveries that existed at the time of the acquisition. We have done a lot of work to burn that down. And we burned that down probably to the tune of about 60% of what was late or delinquent at the time of acquisition. Which programs were most behind? It was certainly multiple, but we've done a great job of really driving that down and we continue to be focused on that. And increasing our capacity to make deliveries for tactical motors; whether that's Stinger, Javelin, GMLRS [Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System missiles]. We've about doubled our investment in [capital expenditures] to be able to increase capacity in existing facilities in Camden and then we are investing, along with the U.S. government around the Defense Procurement Act funding that we received to put a new facility online … largely for Stinger, Javelin and GMLRS, specifically to that new facility. We will continue to focus a significant amount of our effort on tactical motors for the next three to five years in driving that capacity up. We certainly always continue to invest in R&D [research and development], and so if there are needs for focus on a different motor, if you talk about multiple launches, that would likely be a smaller motor, we could certainly, pretty quickly, surge where we have capacity to address things like that. We're certainly focused on affordability, and how we can deliver as much capability for the lowest cost possible. I think we're trying to get to that through, certainly the capital side of things, repeatability, robotics, automation, and then from a design perspective: What are the materials in the propellants? How do you burn the propellants? How do you get range out of the amount of mass that you have? It's a pretty diverse portfolio. And there's a lot of programs and products in there, so there will likely always be some level of delinquencies as you focus your resources on what's critical at the moment. But I think we would largely, will get to more of a steady state, probably end of 2025, where we're really able to focus on driving the capacity improvements and really seeing some of the results of the investments that we've been making in capacity, and, again, continuing to burn down those delinquencies, while also addressing the amount of demand that we see from customers. Expand on the adoption of robotics and automation you're putting into your facilities, and what does that mean for different workers involved in production? We are hiring in Camden and Huntsville. We still need people, just what they are doing will be different. And I would say, as we move forward, there is more science, maybe, and less art to how you produce a motor, and so that's some of the automation, whether it's robotic application of materials to the inside of a motor, whether it's robotic application of materials on the outside. How do you actually do the pouring and casting of the propellant itself? So we are automating those types of processes to make sure that you get the right quality because the tolerances here are pretty tight, pretty specific in how you do this and so it reduces the risk of needing rework and things like that. What would labor then be focusing on in terms of other parts of the production process? It might be quality, certainly. Predictive data is another one. I think that there's opportunity to have labor doing some aspects of that, but mostly it's where there's repeatable and high-volume process. It's pulling the labor out of there and moving it into kind of less repeatable, lower volume areas, potentially moving from production to R&D, as an example. How much more quickly can you produce solid rocket motors for your major programs? We can absolutely accelerate the rate at which we produce solid rocket motors. … Some of it comes down to how quickly can we get on contract. And it takes, unfortunately, longer than you would like, or longer than you would expect, to get on contract to deliver some of these motors. And then, working with the supply chain, there's some long lead items in there that mean that we can't deliver until we get some of those parts. We have to be able to turn our suppliers on. And there's a limited number of suppliers that are doing cases and nozzles and some of these other components of the product. So we've been making some investments in the supply base and the suppliers, providing them with some capital, with some equipment, things like that, and trying to, therefore, shorten that time. … We work with our customers to get funding for some of the long lead requirements, to keep those lines hot so that as capacity is needed, we can move there as quickly as possible. How are you driving flexibility into your manufacturing process to deal with any future ebb and flow in demand? Obviously demand is high now, but we can't predict the future. As we look at some of the investments we're making, we're trying to think about how those are more, I hate to use the word, flexible, but, I'll just say able to be used across multiple products and programs, so less program centric, and more maybe one week you're doing work for Javelin or another kind of smaller motor and the next week you're able to be mixing and casting for a different motor. That's one of the things that we've asked the team to really think about. It is tough because if you look at a solid rocket motor facility, because you're dealing with explosives, it's got to be dispersed. And because it's dispersed, you tend to disperse it by product or by program. So you'll drive around a facility, you'll say, 'There's a [Patriot Advanced Capability]-3 building. There's a SRM building, Standard Missile 2, Standard Missile 2 1B, or Standard Missile 3,' … and now we're trying to say, 'There's a mix and cast building,' and then you get that to where it needs to be, then integrate in the next product We're calling it kind of the factory of the future for solid rocket motors to rethink how do we do it. And I think it's a good time for it, because, as I mentioned, we've doubled our [capital expenditures] in two years since we acquired the business, and as we work with the U.S. government to integrate the DPA, along with our capital, it really gives us an opportunity to while we very much focus on meeting the letter of the law of what the DPA was for — and that was three specific programs — making sure that we are really thinking about how we are able to surge as demand changes over time. Are you seeing opportunities to partner with nontraditional companies or ones just coming on line working on various aspects of this industry? We are. We consider ourselves to be the trusted disruptor in the defense industry. We think we are a little more agile than some of the traditional primes, and therefore, we think we're a good partner to be able to move fast and work with some of the new entrants, and that's where we think some of the discussions will ultimately lead. How is L3Harris approaching President Trump's executive order to establish a missile defense shield of the homeland he is calling Golden Dome? Have you responded to the Missile Defense Agency's requests for information? I think there were eight RFIs [requests for information] that came out from MDA, and then another agency had a set of RFIs that they asked for responses on. We've responded to all of those. We are excited about Golden Dome. We think it's an important capability to keeping the homeland safe and we think we've got a lot of technology and capability there, whether it's space-based missile warning, missile tracking and capabilities around interceptors. You may have seen we, as Aerojet Rocketdyne, have been successful in finding positions on various interceptor programs, whether that's propulsion or divert and attitude control. We do a lot of ballistic missile targets. … And you may have seen recently, I think they called it FT-X 40, was a test that was run, and we had largely provided the capability for that. It was the first ballistic missile test to use a new motor that we had developed. And it also tested some, let's just say, hypersonic capability that L3 Harris has some interest in or some capability around.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
L3Harris breaks ground on solid rocket motor production expansion
The construction of four new solid rocket motor production facilities has begun at L3Harris' Aerojet Rocketdyne campus in Camden, Arkansas, with a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday, the company announced. The new facilities are part of a $215.6 million Defense Production Act program agreement between the Defense Department and L3Harris to increase rocket propulsion manufacturing capacity in the continental U.S. to keep pace with the rising global demand for tactical and strategic missile production. 'Expanding solid rocket motor production in Arkansas is a strategic investment in our nation's security at a time when defense and deterrence are increasingly critical on the global stage,' Ken Bedingfield, president of L3Harris' Aerojet Rocketdyne, said. 'L3Harris is committed to ramping up production to support the defense of our nation, its allies and partners.' Key production will be centralized under one 60,000-square foot, 'state-of-the-art' facility, the company said. This will cut the distance rocket motors travel during manufacturing by 80%, the statement notes. Additionally, a dedicated mixer building and complementary propellant processing buildings will be constructed to increase capacity. Aerojet Rocketdyne, which has been in Camden since 1979, builds more than 75,000 solid-rocket motors a year for weapons like the Javelin, Stinger and Patriot missiles. Prior to the expansion, its Camden workforce totaled more than 1,000 employees in 2023, Aerojet told Defense News at the time. That number has now grown to 1,200 employees, a company spokesperson confirmed. Since the establishment of the cooperative agreement with DOD in 2023, the company designed new buildings and plans for undeveloped property across multiple sites, according to the statement, and purchased new tooling and equipment, which is already being used to increase rocket motor production. How the war in Ukraine is driving growth in Arkansas The expansion at L3Harris in Camden is just one of many efforts underway in a defense industrial park that also includes Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. Just down the road, Lockheed Martin builds the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Launcher, or HIMARS, which have played a key role in helping Ukraine fight Russian forces since Russia's invasion in 2022. Lockheed is also drastically expanding its production of HIMARS as well as Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, or GMLRS, and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 family of missiles. Local officials in Camden have been hopeful that expansion at L3Harris and dozens of other defense contractors in its industrial park — driven by the demand for weapons for Ukraine and the need to replenish and rebuild missile stockpiles — will lead to growth in the region. 'L3Harris is building the future of its solid rocket production in Arkansas, and we are excited to see this growth take off,' Clint O'Neal, executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said in the statement. 'This is a milestone for L3Harris, the State of Arkansas, and the south Arkansas region.' In addition to the Camden expansion, L3Harris is also modernizing and growing its solid rocket motor facilities in Orange County, Virginia, and Huntsville, Alabama, under the same cooperative agreement. The company's updates in Virginia supports increased production. L3Harris plans to transition its production of inert components for missile systems to Huntsville.
