Sonya Sepahban oversees the Maneuver Collaboration Center (mc2) at General Dynamics Land Systems, which aims to integrate improvements into military vehicles faster through open collaboration. mc2 brings together engineers, suppliers, universities and small companies to submit ideas that address needs posted online. Promising ideas are evaluated and tested on vehicles using mc2's facilities. One example is a hull design tested through mc2 that has saved soldiers' lives in Afghanistan by deflecting explosive blasts. Sepahban believes mc2's collaborative approach that rapidly moves ideas from submission to testing helps keep soldiers safe.

1. 26 WINTER 2013 • X-OLOGY
GENERAL DYNAMICS
W
hat could top a NASA job putting
astronauts into space? If you ask
Sonya Sepahban, the answer would
be overseeing engineering and the Maneuver
Collaboration Center (mc2
) at General Dynamics
Land Systems.
Sepahban is the senior vice president of
engineering, development and technology at the
company’s headquarters in Sterling Heights, MI.
She oversees the innovative collaboration center
and is the first female senior executive in the
history of the company.
Before joining GD,Sepahban did indeed design
spacecraft for NASA, and she even supported its
mission control center.
“I started out wanting to be an astronaut — of
course, me and a million other people, right?” she
says.And although she may not have made it into
space,she did work on both the Space Shuttle and
International Space Station programs. “I began at
NASA in manned space, went on to unmanned
space, and I also had a stint in military aircraft, so
the first 27 years of my career were dominated by
aerospace. My passion was for space.”
businessprofile
BY LESLIE MERTZ
Unprecedented
collaboration
and ultra-
fast product
development
help keep
soldiers safe
on the cutting edge of innovation
Visitors to mc2 have
the opportunity to test
innovative technologies
in theWarfighter
Integration Lab.

2. X-OLOGY • WINTER 2013 27
Sepahban was happy in her career, but
when General Dynamics called, she decided
she ought to at least check it out. This high-
performing company was, after all, a world
leader in designing and developing military
ground vehicles for the U.S. armed forces and
its allies. “I came down for a visit, and the
honest truth is that I just fell in love with the
culture and with the team, and I decided to
make the change.”
VIRTUAL COLLABORATION
One of her major undertakings since arriving
at GD in 2009 has included overseeing the
creation of mc2
, which opened in 2010. “We
had a vision of creating a very open, collab-
orative environment that integrates improve-
ments into operational vehicles faster than
ever before,” Sepahban says.
mc2
does that in several ways. One is a
virtual community where the mc2
team posts
its need statements. Eight technology thrust
areas are in the community, including system
integration and architecture, survivability,
mobility, lethality and power and energy,
among others. Customers and users, includ-
ing the men and women on the battlefield,
suppliers and academia, submit their ideas
through mc2
’s secure website.
“This is not about creating technology
and looking to see where it can be em-
ployed. It’s really starting with a need,”
Sepahban says. There are currently about
300 postings in the community.
Members of mc2
can respond to the need
statements, including GD engineers, suppli-
ers, university researchers and small compa-
nies who view the list, pick out something
that looks interesting and feasible and pitch
their ideas to the mc2
team.
“Many of those who submit ideas are
not traditional military-type companies,”
Sepahban says. “The majority of our mc2
members are small companies, and some are
literally mom-and-pop shops who wouldn’t
otherwise have considered working on
mc2
and Michigan
Besides the nearby location of one of its
major U.S. Army customers (TACOM Life
Cycle Management Command in Warren),
Southeast Michigan has proved to be a
good location for mc2
.
“Where we are geographically and with
the products that we make, there is a lot of
synergy and opportunity to collaborate with
automotive original equipment manufactur-
ers and the automotive supply chain,” says
Sonya Sepahban, senior vice president of
engineering, development and technology
at General Dynamics Land Systems.
“To that end, we are working with auto-
makers on some projects, and we are also
looking for dual-use technologies.The col-
laborative process in mc2
presents a win-win
situation,” she says. Electric hybrid vehicle
technology is an example.“We’ve been in
that technology for a long time, and it’s not
so much a technical challenge as it is an eco-
nomic challenge. Just as higher price is an
issue for consumers with electric vehicles,
we are also trying to make it as cost-neutral
as possible for our customers when the
mission profile requires it or would derive
a benefit from an alternative to the tradition-
ally fueled engine.”
One way is to work with suppliers who
are making components for commercial
large trucks or agricultural equipment, and
which could potentially be shared by mili-
tary vehicles.“By co-investing and collabo-
rating with these suppliers we’re hoping that
the price point will be driven down.We’re
very excited about that,” she says. Likewise,
mc2
has approached traditional automotive
suppliers with an eye toward collaborating
on battery technology for electric vehicles.
“We want to see where we can find these
synergies,” Sepahban says.
Today, GD expands beyond metropoli-
tan Detroit. Of its 2,600 or so engineers,
several hundred are in Canada, and some
are posted in the United Kingdom or
other parts of the world where its vehicles
are deployed. Still, Sepahban says, the
Great Lakes state is home. “Certainly,
having our headquarters here does have
its benefits, and we are a very proud
Michigan company.”
“We had a vision of creating a very open,
collaborative environment that integrates
improvements into operational vehicles
faster than ever before.”
– SONYA SEPAHBAN
mc2 ‘s Chassis Dynamometer can handle up to 72 tons and has an adjustable roller
system that can accommodate a wide range of wheelbases.
>>

3. 28 WINTER 2013 • X-OLOGY
military products or even known how
to get involved in the defense sector. They
bring in their ideas, they put their gadget in
the back of their truck or in a little traveling
suitcase, they come here to the facility and
we do the rest together.”
“The rest” also sets mc2
apart. Already
known for its world-class systems engineer-
ing and systems-integration capabilities, mc2
added an end-to-end, very agile process for
evaluating the potential of each and every
submitted idea. “Ideas don’t go into a black
hole or into a computer. We have a multi-
disciplinary team that looks at submissions
as they come in and runs each submission
through a full set of evaluations, both from
technical and business standpoints, to as-
certain whether it’s applicable to one of our
products.” Even if the team members ul-
timately decide that the idea is not a good
match for GD products, they get back to the
submitter with the status and often with sug-
gestions about other science or technology
organizations that might be a better fit.
LIVE-SAVING INNOVATION
For those ideas that do look promising, mc2
has the facilities to put them on a variety of
ground vehicles and perform a series of tests.
“For instance, if it has something to do with
the mobility of the vehicle, we have the larg-
est dynamometer in the country. It can dem-
onstrate the use of the innovation like it’s in
a real mission right on an actual vehicle,”
Sepahban says.
Not only does mc2
run the gamut from
idea to implementation, it does it quickly.
“That’s a major point,” says Sepahban.
When it comes to the combat theater, speed
is of the essence because soldiers’ lives are
in the balance.
“Just one example to make it real is the
recent Double-v Hull (DVH) shape that we’ve
put on our Stryker armored vehicles in Af-
ghanistan,” she says. Before the new hull
design, enemy improvised explosive devices
were taking a toll. The new DVH channels
blast force away from the vehicle, an im-
provement that is saving lives.
Because of mc2
’s collaborative and quick
process, the new DVH design was able to
move from the drawing board to the soldiers
on the line in record time, Sepahban says. If
they hadn’t been able to shave off those
months in development time, “hundreds of
lives would have been lost in that timeframe.”
Successes like that make Sepahban sure
she made the right decision in coming to GD.
“That level of job satisfaction I haven’t had
anywhere else, including when I was putting
men and women into space, working at Mis-
sion Control or designing spacecraft. This is
just much more personal, and at a time when
our country is still at war, there is nothing bet-
ter that I could do.” www.gdls.com/mc2
businessprofile
Log on to mc2
Collaboration begins in mc2’s virtual community. Registration is simple and it’s free to
join. Once inside, you can view need statements and submit innovative solutions:
1. Access www.gdls.com/mc2 and click “register now.”
2.Validate your email address and click “confirm address.”
3. Once you receive the email from “mc2
collaboration,” click the link to create your
account and profile.
4. Complete your registration by selecting your “user type” and follow the remaining
prompts.
>>
The mc2
core team at General Dynamics Land Systems