Technical Fellow and Smart Factory Architect

Raytheon

Biography

Crystal is a Technical Fellow and Certified Architect at Raytheon, in the Industry 4.0 portion of the Operations Excellence organization. Crystal and her team are responsible for creating lean, connected Smart Factories and support the planning, development and execution of these technologies as well as their long term sustainment across Raytheon nationwide. These projects include the Raytheon Digital Factory as well as Industry 4.0, Smart Factory and Digital Thread initiatives that are used in each location to improve cycle time, reduce cost and deliver consistent high quality.

Crystal’s passion revolves around creating stable, trusted solutions that are easily maintainable and readily adaptable to differing factory requirements. Opportunities provided by disruptive innovation can seem to be in direct conflict with the predictability expected by the factory floor. Crystal welcomes this challenge and believes that protecting and enhancing the operator experience as well as enabling the responsible engineer are the central tenants to any successful factory system. Providing an environment where new ideas are embraced and creative engineers can thrive while working together toward stable and secure solutions is where true success is achieved.

She became a Technical Fellow in 2023 and holds a patent for a mortar launched surveillance vehicle system as well as holding a trade secret in the area of Smart Manufacturing. She chaired the RI&S Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing track at the 2021 Raytheon Manufacturing Technology Network Symposium and received the Influential Women in Manufacturing award in 2019.

Raytheon, an RTX business, is a leading provider of defense solutions to help the U.S. government, our allies and partners defend their national sovereignty and ensure their security. For more than 100 years, Raytheon has developed new technologies and enhanced existing capabilities in integrated air and missile defense, smart weapons, missiles, advanced sensors and radars, interceptors, space-based systems, hypersonics and missile defense across land, air, sea and space. With more than 185,000 global employees, RTX pushes the limits of technology and science to redefine how we connect and protect our world.