Breaking the force of paperwork

The system launched by Motorolaincludes 66 Low Earth Orbit satellites that link with each other, as well as with cell phones and land-based telephony networks. Each satellite consists of 80,000 parts, and that's where such an earthy issue as paperwork enters the picture.

To be first-to-market for its customers and to begin seeing a return on investment, Motorola needed to deploy the entire constellation of satellites in 13 months--several months less than the time traditionally required to build one satellite.

To help produce the satellites at such an uncommon rate, Motorola's Mobile Satellite Systems Group implemented a manufacturing application called Kinnosa from Entrada Software.

Motorola needed to automate the paper-based systems that trail a satellite from drawings through manufacturing. Traditionally the status accounting data was inspected manually ... in line-by-line comparisons of documents that weigh more than the satellite hardware that's placed in orbit. The process was not only labor-intensive, but also time-consuming, averaging six weeks per satellite.

The new solution employs enterprise and connectivity technologies to link the manufacturing software with Motorola's legacy systems. The challenge was in developing the interfaces that would bring the data from the manufacturing and engineering sides into the data depot and run the comparisons.

When the disparate systems were integrated, the result was a "product biography" of each of the satellites and its 80,000 parts.

Now, when the managers responsible for the satellites and their performance need to know the hardware configuration of a certain satellite, they can access the system and find the answers right here on earth.