How ispace tracked a multimillion-dollar lunar hardware portfolio across 3 countries and hit 99.9% accuracy on first count
Disclosure: I work with Boltline. Sharing this because it's an interesting ops story, not to shill.
ispace is developing their Mission 3 lunar lander (Team Draper Commercial Mission 1, targeting the Moon's far side, NET 2027). As they scaled across three sites — US, Luxembourg, and Japan — they ran into a fundamental tooling problem.
**The problem: wrong software for the job**
Their existing ERP was built for high-volume, low-mix production. Standard manufacturing assumption: you make the same thing repeatedly.
Lunar hardware is the inverse. Low volume, high mix, every unit is essentially unique, constantly iterating. You can't run click-by-click traceability workflows through a system designed for batch production.
Specific gaps they hit:
- No unified audit trail across hardware workflows (who did what, when)
- Multi-site coordination required manual reconciliation between US, Luxembourg, and Japan systems
- Paper-based travelers in clean rooms = transcription lag, lost records, no photo documentation
- Remote clean room monitoring was not possible without physical entry
**What they built with Boltline**
They implemented a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) purpose-built for complex, low-volume hardware programs:
1. **Work Plan Runs** — Every step in every work instruction logs the user, timestamp, and action automatically. No manual sign-off sheets.
2. **Mobile documentation** — Tablets on the shop floor. Engineers attach photos directly to work plan steps as they complete them. ISO documentation requirements met in real time.
3. **Remote monitoring** — Engineers in Colorado watch ISO Class 7 clean room operations in Luxembourg live, without physical entry. Material contamination risk down.
4. **Single platform** — All three sites on the same system. US AI&T, Luxembourg clean room ops, Japan integration — same data, same version, same compliance baseline.
5. **Flexible configuration** — Started in AI&T, expanded organically to quality, logistics, and inventory without a separate rollout.
**Results**
99.9% inventory accuracy on their first full count. The entire flight hardware portfolio, multimillion dollars in parts and assemblies, fully traced. First try.
"Building lunar landers for the far side of the Moon demands traceability and efficiency. Boltline has built the accountability we need to hit Mission 3 milestones." — Isaiah Janzen, Manufacturing Lead US, ispace-US
**Why this matters beyond ispace**
The traceability problem isn't unique to space hardware. Anywhere you have low-volume, high-mix, safety-critical production — medical devices, defense systems, advanced prototype development — the same gap exists between what ERP assumes and what the work actually requires.
The first-count accuracy number is interesting because most organizations never measure it cleanly. They assume they have traceability because they have records somewhere. The gap between "records somewhere" and "click-by-click audit trail" is where errors live.
Full case study: boltline.com/resources/case-studies/ispace-boosts-lunar-mission-success-with-boltlines-precision-traceability/
Happy to answer questions about the technical implementation if useful.