Case Study: Virgin Orbit achieves rapid, on-budget production ramp-up with iBASEt Solumina MES

Virgin Orbit Takes Off on Production

Virgin Orbit, the Long Beach–based launch company building the LauncherOne rocket and Cosmic Girl 747 program, faced an aggressive production ramp-up and complex engineer-to-order manufacturing with deep BOMs, frequent engineering changes, and a largely paper-based shop floor that slowed work and obscured traceability. To meet its deadlines, Virgin Orbit selected iBase-t’s Solumina MES/Quality solution to deliver paperless work instructions, real-time visibility, and integration with its Oracle ERP and Teamcenter PLM systems.

iBase-t implemented out-of-the-box Process Planning, Shop Floor Execution, and Shop Floor Quality functionality, provided targeted implementation workshops, and integrated shop-floor data with ERP/PLM. The solution went live in four months—1.5 months ahead of plan—and under budget, replacing labor‑intensive paper processes with centralized digital work instructions, faster exception handling, improved traceability and WIP tracking, and tighter quality and change management to support an accelerated production ramp.

Virgin Orbit

Darren Buonaguidi

Project Manager