Advanced manufacturing company Hadrian officially opened a new facility in Cherokee, Alabama that will boost production of U.S. Navy nuclear submarines.
The 2.2 million-square-foot site will host a highly-automated “factory of the future,” known as F4, which will mass produce components for Virginia-class attack submarines and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. The Navy’s $900 million investment combined with $1.5 billion in private capital for a total investment of more than $2.4 billion. According to Hadrian, up to 1,000 manufacturing jobs are being created in the venture.
Using advanced manufacturing techniques, workers at the new factory will be able to mass produce components that are needed to build Virginia-class and Columbia-class submarines. The company said a dedicated production plant focused on these components frees up submarine shipyards in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Virginia to focus more resources on submarine module production.
“We call this distributed shipbuilding, and it’s a key tenet of our plan to achieve required shipbuilding production rates,” said Jason Potter, Performing the Duties of Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development & Acquisition (ASN RDA). “These factories of the future might be several states away from the yards where the ships are ultimately built, but by taking on this work they reduce bottlenecks, having a profound effect on the speed of delivery.”
The Factory 4 project is estimated to take 18 to 24 months from initiation to full-rate production, including stand-up of automated production facilities, qualification of components, compliance qualifications like submarine safety program (SUBSAFE), and low-rate initial production. By the third year, the facilities will operate sustainably through delivery of submarine product lines.
