Ursa Major has deployed a quality management system that routes recurring defect patterns back to its engineers rather than closing them out on the shop floor. The system runs as an Ontology-driven manufacturing execution system built on Palantir's Warp Speed platform, and it is live across the company's propulsion programs.
The quality module analyzes metrics across historical builds and identifies which conditions get flagged most often, then prompts engineers to consider a design change or a threshold adjustment. Every disposition and root cause analysis feeds back into the Ontology, closing the loop between what fails on the floor and what gets specified upstream. Quality engineers who spend their week dispositioning the same nonconformance will recognize the gap this targets.
Holds are automatic. SCADA data triggers a quality hold in the MES the moment an issue appears during test, and if another system flags a problem, the hold fires instantly. Engineering changes propagate through workflows in near real-time, so a component design revision updates the operator's instructions, flags the relevant quality gates, and reaches procurement and production without manual re-entry. Manufacturing orders sync with MRP logic, giving the team visibility into inventory levels, supplier lead times, and bottlenecks.
Setup is automated too. An AI-configured Assembly and Testing Assistant generates digital workflows directly from engineering drawings and PDFs, work the company previously measured in weeks of manual configuration. Director of Operations Nancy Cable, who demonstrated the system at Palantir's AIPCon, tied the need to the company's manufacturing mix. "Eighty percent of our rocket engine components are 3D printed" she said, describing a floor where machines, fixtures, and tooling change constantly.
The efficiency figure attached to the deployment, 10,000 to 15,000 engineering hours saved annually, is a projection rather than a measured result, drawn from tools that had been running only a few months. The production cadence it supports is easier to check. Ursa Major took its Draper liquid rocket engine from contract to a supersonic flight of AFRL's Affordable Rapid Missile Demonstrator in eight months, a schedule that leaves little room for quality data to sit in a queue.
