Executive Summary

“[A transition to BuildOS can reduce the time spent developing work instructions by 95%!]”

Ancra Aircraft, a leading Tier 1 aerospace supplier, adopted Dirac's BuildOS to streamline and optimize their assembly process by replacing text-based work instructions with digitally animated, model-based, visual instructions. The adoption of this cutting-edge technology has reduced work instruction creation time, improved standardization, and enhanced communication between design and assembly teams. The result is an optimization in the assembly of high-quality units, allowing Ancra Aircraft to offer its customers with unparalleled improvements in production costs and lead time.

Customer Overview

Ancra Aircraft specializes in producing high-quality cargo loading systems and other custom components for commercial and military aircraft. As part of The HEICO Companies, Ancra International LLC, Aircraft Division (“Ancra Aircraft”) is the industry standard for aircraft main deck cargo loading systems, equipping over 60% of the world’s aircraft freighter fleet. Headquartered in Azusa, California, Ancra employs approximately 250 people and manages a complex production environment with over 500 unique assemblies across multiple systems.\

Conquering Common Assembly Risks

Ancra Aircraft’s mission to push the boundaries of manufacturing efficiency and modernization aligned well with Dirac’s BuildOS platform, which offered both companies a unique opportunity to collaborate as part of a significant New Product Introduction (NPI) program. This collaborative process improvement leveraged the capabilities of the Build OS software, with a targeted objective of reducing common risks associated with:

1.Efficiency in Work Instruction Creation: Assembly processes would no longer be dependent on manually created instructions, giving Ancra the ability to achieve decreased lead times, reduce administrative burden, and expand production flexibility.

2. Independence from Tacit Knowledge: The digital and animated work instructions generated by the BuildOS platform reduce a company’s reliance on tacit knowledge—skills learned through experience and often undocumented – of the company’s assembly technicians. Independence from tacit knowledge allows for increased flexibility in resource scheduling and ensures a more consistent knowledge base is shared among the assembly workforce.

3. Standardization: Lack of standardization can increase the risk of bottlenecks, complicate quality assurance, and impede continuous improvement efforts. By standardizing the creation and use of work instructions, technicians are easily able to follow the assembly process steps, leading to an increase in first pass yields, reduction in quality control interventions, and reducing the overall costs associated with quality rejections.


Dirac’s model-based BuildOS platform is uniquely capable of addressing these common production risks, which has allowed Ancra to effectively mitigate the likelihood of occurrence during the transition from NPI to full rate production.

Engagement & Implementation: First Call to Roll-out in 6 Weeks

Dirac’s BuildOS platform was implemented at Ancra Aircraft with an accelerated timeline, moving from initial engagement to full roll-out in just six weeks. With a hands-on approach, Dirac’s team conducted an on-site kickoff to ensure Ancra Aircraft could realize immediate benefits from the new technology by a seamless transition to the Dirac platform. Within the first two weeks, Ancra began generating work instructions and quickly integrated BuildOS into their assembly stations, transforming workflows and reducing reliance on manual processes.

Ten weeks after launch, Dirac’s team returned to assess the impact directly on the shop floor. The demonstrated results allowed Ancra’s management to triple their seat count, expanding usage across departments. This decision highlights how BuildOS’s benefits in traceability and standardization scale exponentially with broader adoption, delivering even greater ROI at scale.

Key Results with BuildOS

Ancra’s adoption of BuildOS has transformed their assembly processes, moving from traditional text-based instructions to a model-based system that optimizes and reinforces precision and efficiency. The implementation has delivered immediate operational benefits.

1.Significant Time Savings in Work Instruction Creation

With BuildOS, Ancra reduced the time required to create work instructions from several days to just a few hours, seeing nearly 95% efficiency gained in some cases. One engineer noted, “A work instruction that used to take 3 to 4 days to generate using traditional methods now takes me 1 to 2 hours.” BuildOS enables engineers to quickly draft instructions, gather real-time input from assembly teams, and make rapid adjustments, enhancing both speed and clarity.

2. Standardization Across Processes and Reduced Risk of Assembly Errors

BuildOS has enabled Ancra to implement standardized assembly instructions, improving consistency in tools, processes, and quality. This shift helps reduce errors, improve product quality, and ensure consistent results across multiple builds, even for complex assemblies. “It just gives a clear view of how to build this assembly, not only for one but also to repeat that process for 20 or 100 units,” said one engineer, highlighting BuildOS’s scalability and efficiency.

3. Improved Communication and Clarity related to Design Intent

Shifting from static PowerPoint slides and 2D technical engineering drawings to BuildOS’s animated, model-based instructions improved communication between design and assembly teams. “Before, the best method of communicating issues or challenges was by use of a screenshot or stationary picture, but this [BuildOS] helps so much more,” shared an Ancra engineer. This enhanced clarity streamlines the build process and shortens the NPI life cycle by closing the feedback loop between design and build.

4. Preservation of Tacit Knowledge and Reduced Personnel Dependency

With BuildOS, Ancra is able to capture the essential knowledge of some of its most experienced assembly technicians in detailed, animated instructions which can be digitally copied and shared across the workforce in a single training session. This capability makes assembly methods easily accessible to any team member and ensures that critical knowledge on some of the most complex assemblies is retained within the company for future projects. Furthermore, as Ancra captures additional business and expands its workforce to accommodate increased customer demand, new team members can be onboarded more easily.

5. Enhanced Insight into Production Metrics and Issue Identification

BuildOS provides Ancra with a new level of visibility into production metrics, allowing them to analyze performance at both the station and assembly levels. These granular insights are invaluable for identifying and capitalizing key opportunities in the assembly process, enabling manufacturing engineers to spend less time on manual time studies or shadowing technicians and more time devoted to continuous improvement and optimizing production processes. This data-driven approach is already helping Ancra mitigate potential bottlenecks quickly and incorporate real-time feedback to continuously improve processes in ways which result in direct customer benefits.