the aerospace industry was up 17 percent to $23 billion.”


The defense industry was also cheered when, at the end of 2013, the US House and Senate budget negotiators reached agreement on a budget deal to lessen sequestration impacts on military and do- mestic spending over the next two years, eliminating $63 billion in across-the-board domestic and military cuts through Sep- tember, 2015.


Aerospace manufacturing, from drilling to measuring, is increasingly being automated in order to keep up with increased demand.


and a new industry record of 1619 gross orders, beating the previous record in 2011 by 11 aircraft. In October, the company predicted a 20-year $4.4 trillion commercial jet market, citing growing demand in India and China. The company’s biggest news came in April 2013, when construction of the new A320 Family Assembly Line officially began in Alabama. Airbus touted the factory as a future opportunity for up to 1000 high-skilled workers, either directly at the factory or in the supply chain.


Defense in Limbo


Looming over the defense side of the industry all year was the Sequester: the Budget Control Act sequestration took effect in March; it included a $37 billion reduction in defense spending with an announced annual reduction of $52 billion expected for the next nine years. Interested parties, including the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), spent much of the year warning about the catastrophe these cuts could create. Still, the AIA reported in January 2014 that 2013 turned into a fairly average year. In its annual year-end report, the organization said that “industry military aircraft sales dropped six percent, and missiles and space both dropped five percent. But despite those declines, an uptick of four percent on defense exports helped the industry and the Pentagon’s use of previously unobligated funds softened the blow. Net profit after taxes across


8 ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com | March 2014 New Materials


Newer materials are a growing part of the improvement process: GE Aviation, for example, broke ground in Novem- ber 2013 for a new factory in North Carolina that will make commercial engine components out of ceramic matrix com- posites (CMC)—an industry first. In February 2013, Boeing announced the creation of a facility in Utah for fabricating composite horizontal stabilizer components for the 787-9. And the past year saw NASA, Pratt & Whitney and GE Avia- tion, among others, turn to additive manufacturing for more component manufacture.


The demand for product on the com- mercial side and the tightening of purse strings on the defense side both put pres- sure on the entire aerospace industry to continue to find ways to improve produc- tion processes as well as their products.


US drone manufacturing is now large enough that it is poised to create more than 70,000 jobs,.


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