A variety of forces are driving the aerospace industry to have to
revisit how it approaches tooling. "'Designing, building and
maintaining tooling can account for as much as 40% of the total
start-up costs of a conventional aircraft production program,' says
Terrance Massie, manager of Tool Engineering and Sustaining. 'Even a
tooling reduction of a few percent can add up to millions of dollars
in savings.'" ("Boeing's measurement system reduces jet fighter's
cost" Tooling & Production, July 2000
http://www.manufacturingcenter.com/tooling/archives/0700/0700pn.asp)
Like the automotive industry before it, the aerospace industry is
confronting an increasingly fragmented customer base and an extremely
competitive environment.
When the same item is going to be produced over and over again, a
single-purpose tool is usually cheaper than a flexible one. However,
when many different items are required to satisfy customers, the
expense of developing a single-purpose tool for each of them can be
uneconomical. Hence, an opportunity is created to justifiably incur
the additional expense of purchasing flexible tools that can be
applied to many different products.
A number of factors are resulting in both commercial and military
aircraft being made in smaller runs. Cost concerns have resulted in
military orders being for smaller runs of aircraft with many versions
to incorporate new technologies as they are developed and to perform
different missions. Demand for commercial air travel has been
adversely affected by terrorism concerns. Airlines are suffering
financially and cannot afford to purchase as many new planes.
Instead, many are choosing to operate their existing planes longer and
to operate previously mothballed planes instead of purchasing new
ones. And even when they do purchase new planes, airlines are
extremely cost sensitive. Airlines are adapting to these circumstances
by pursuing a variety of different strategies, each of which requires
a different type of airplane. Hence, instead of one or two standard
jumbo jet models, product offerings have expanded to include
everything from regional jets to an especially efficient jet to the
largest jet ever produced. Also, instead of one company (Boeing)
essentially having a near monopoly on airplane production, worldwide
aircraft production is now fragmented among Boeing, Airbus,
Bombardier, and others despite consolidation. Finally, customers are
demanding a greater degree of customization capability of their
aircraft. All of these factors require the consideration of flexible
automation in the production process, especially for the airframe.
Unlike the planes of the past that had very limited build
combinations, primarily based on whether they were intended for
freight or passenger traffic, airlines are forcing aircraft
manufacturers to introduce tremendous variety into each plane. This
variety primarily manifests itself in the airframe. Not only can
airlines configure a plane for freight or passenger traffic, but the
plane can be built in one of many seating configurations. Bathroom
and galley placement can vary. Different in-flight entertainment
options can be provided. In extreme cases, planes are beginning to
resemble cruise ships with optional bars and casinos. As a result,
instead of building many planes that are virtually identical, aircraft
manufacturers are forced to confront building nearly every plane with
a unique configuration.
Except for declining demand overall, the automotive industry has also
faced these issues. The entry of many competitors into the market has
resulted in less demand for each individual company. General Motors
no longer has the majority of American market share, for example.
Lower development costs for new models make these issues even worse in
some respects than airplanes because runs of a particular model
typically last only three or four years, and significant changes occur
annually. Trillions of build combinations are possible. Like the
aerospace industry, tooling is a major cost of automobile production.
The response has been to promote flexible manufacturing processes so
that tooling can be used across a variety of models so that its
expense can be amortized over many units. Many companies have adapted
by abandoning production lines that can only make one model in favor
of production lines that can make many models. In extreme cases,
models can be intermixed one after the other without requiring a
changeover.
Traditional aircraft production has been based on assembly lines that
can only produce a single model in a handful of configurations. The
proliferation of build combinations and the decrease in demand for
each particular model of aircraft necessitates the adoption of
flexible approaches. Having single use tools for each build
combination or even a particular model of aircraft is no longer
economically viable because there are not enough units to amortize the
tools' expense over. Flexibility not only allows most if not all of
the tools to be shared over all of the build combinations of a
particular model, but opens the potential for an assembly line that is
capable of producing multiple models of aircraft. "The Economics of
applying automation to legacy airframes is influenced by the limited
production runs that necessitate multiple applications of the same
automation equipment to a variety of airframe components to maximize
the Return on Investment (ROI) and make the automation reasonable to
apply." ("Automation Consortium Definitive Industry Requirements"
Aerospace Automation Consortium, Purdue University
http://www.tech.purdue.edu/aac/requirements.html) Flexibility is the
only way to achieve this goal.
Automation is essential from both a cost and quality standpoint. Hand
manufacturing methods are very expensive and time-consuming.
Furthermore, as composites play a larger role in aircraft
construction, automation is needed to make their production less
labor-intensive and more uniform. Automation can also play valuable
role in the application of coatings to aircraft structures, especially
airframes, systems diagnostics, and assembly.
One potential downside to the introduction of flexible automation,
aside from its increased cost, is its effects on airframe design. The
possibility exists that airframe components would have to be designed
with increased cost and/or weight in order to permit the application
of automation to their assembly into the structure of the airframe.
Other challenges exist with respect to compensating for small
variations in part positioning, dealing with curved structures, and
eliminating burrs from drilling.
"...[M]any applications where automated systems could be applied
cannot because the quantity of holes or process to be performed is not
large enough or there are not enough units left in the production run
to warrant acquiring an automated system. Automated systems need to
be developed that can be flexible across many different components and
assemblies as well as perform various tasks." ("Automation Consortium
Definitive Industry Requirements" Aerospace Automation Consortium,
Purdue University http://www.tech.purdue.edu/aac/requirements.html)
As the aerospace industry becomes more and more like the automotive
industry, similar solutions like flexible automation will have to be
employed to overcome the economic challenges. Furthermore, it seems
inevitable that one or more Asian countries will eventually enter the
aerospace marketplace as well, further fragmenting demand and
challenging the existing players. Despite the adjustments that will
be needed for its adoption to be successful, flexible automation is
clearly going to play a major role in aircraft manufacturing in the
future.
I encourage you to review the article, "Automation Consortium
Definitive Industry Requirements" Aerospace Automation Consortium,
Purdue University http://www.tech.purdue.edu/aac/requirements.html, in
its entirety for the industry's perspective on many of these issues
relating to the need to adopt flexible automation.
Sincerely,
Wonko |
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