• ITAR-compliant architecture

  • Digital thread from design to as-built

  • Full part genealogy across every facility

We understand the aerospace and defence industry challenges

mode40 practitioners understand what your DCMA auditor expects, what your AS9100 system requires, and what your ITAR compliance officer loses sleep over. We've built traceability systems inside environments where a single documentation gap can ground a fleet. We know where your data breaks and what it costs you.

Pain Points

Your compliance documentation is manual. Your digital thread has gaps. Your next audit is closer than your remediation timeline.

Export-controlled data scattered across systems with inconsistent access controls. Foreign person segregation managed by policy, not architecture. Every system touchpoint is a potential compliance exposure. Your ITAR officer is managing risk with spreadsheets and trust.

How We Work in Aerospace and Defence

What a mode40 engagement looks like
inside an aerospace and defence operation.

/01

Learn

We trace a part number from your technical data package through the shop floor to the delivered configuration. Every gap becomes visible.

Your ITAR access controls. Your configuration management workflow. Your AS9100 documentation chain. We follow a part from engineering release through production to find where the digital thread breaks, where traceability depends on someone remembering to log it, and where compliance documentation is assembled after the fact instead of generated during the work.

By the end, you have a clear picture of where your data architecture holds, where it creates exposure, and what closing those gaps is worth in audit risk, shipment delays, and rework.

Where we look:

  • ITAR data segregation and access control architecture
  • AS9100 quality management system and documentation workflows
  • Configuration management and engineering change flow to the shop floor
  • 5-axis CNC, EDM, CMM, and NDT/NDE data capture
  • Special process records: heat treat, surface treatment, welding, plating
  • First Article Inspection (AS9102/FAIR) documentation processes
  • ERP workflows: SAP, IFS, Epicor, Quantum
  • Material certification tracking and counterfeit parts prevention controls

/02

Implement

Your engineering revision reaches the shop floor automatically. Your as-built record matches the as-designed intent. Your ITAR data segregation is architecture, not policy.

This is where the digital thread stops being a goal and becomes a system output. Engineering releases a revision. It flows to the shop floor as a digital work instruction. The machinist runs the current version. Not the one from last month. Not the one taped to the machine.

MAST captures part genealogy as work happens. Serial numbers, lot numbers, material certifications, special process records, NDT results. All linked. All traceable. All inside an ITAR-compliant architecture with role-based access control and foreign person data segregation built into the platform. Not bolted on as an afterthought.

What this looks like in your operation:

  • Real-time visibility across programs and classification levels. Without risking foreign-system exposure
  • Quality records generated from production data. Nonconformance tracking, corrective action management, and disposition workflows. Connected
  • Part genealogy from material receipt through every operation to delivered configuration. Continuous. Every serial. Every cert. Every process step
  • Configuration management that flows from engineering to production without a paper handoff
  • Your ERP (SAP, IFS, Epicor, Quantum) feeding and receiving from the same platform as your floor

/03

Automate

A dimensional trend appears on a 5-axis operation. The system catches it before parts go out of tolerance. Before scrap. Before a nonconformance report.

That is what intelligence looks like in an aerospace and defence environment. Not a dashboard. Not a report. A system that watches your critical dimensions, your material certifications, and your process parameters. And acts on what it finds.

A material certification arrives at receiving with an anomaly. It gets flagged before the material enters production. Your quality engineer submits a First Article Inspection package. The system identifies documentation gaps before the rejection and rework cycle. AS9100 audit-ready documentation generates itself from production data. Not from your quality team reconstructing records after the fact.

Clara, the AI assistant embedded in MAST, surfaces root cause when nonconformances occur. Recommends corrective actions. Answers operator questions about procedures and specifications in plain language.

The system learns from every production cycle, every deviation, every correction. It gets sharper over time without adding headcount.

/04

Enable

Your new machinist pulls up the setup procedure for a complex 5-axis job on a tablet. Your quality inspector traces a part from raw material to delivered configuration in seconds.

That is what adoption looks like. Not a training binder that sits on a shelf. A system your people reach for because it makes their job easier and their compliance documentation automatic.

Lila, the knowledge platform embedded in MAST, puts setup procedures, inspection criteria for critical characteristics, special process parameters, and program-specific requirements in front of your people when they need them. On the floor. Not in a filing cabinet. Not locked in someone’s head.

When your most experienced machinist retires, their knowledge of how to hold tolerance on a difficult geometry, how to set up a complex fixture, how to interpret a drawing callout does not retire with them. It is documented, structured, and available to the person who takes their place.

What your team gets:

  • Training built around actual programs, actual equipment, actual compliance requirements
  • Tribal knowledge from senior machinists and inspectors captured and always current
  • New hires productive on documented procedures instead of shadowing for months
  • Compliance documentation that generates itself from the work, not from manual assembly

Results

Documented. Not projected.

  • $1B+

    Team built and operated inside a billion-dollar manufacturing operation.

  • ITAR-compliant

    Platform architecture built for export-controlled environments from the ground up.

  • Design → As-built

    Continuous digital thread. No manual documentation bridges.

  • Full genealogy

    Every part, every serial, every material cert, every process step. One system.