During the past few years, aerospace manufacturers have begun to analyze what they make, how they make it, and what materials and processes need re-consideration. Companies have begun to shift from traditional manufacturing centers (grinding, EDM, and milling departments) to product cells. Each cell may include several discrete processes, but a complete product will be made there without leaving the loop or cell. Traditionally, processes, such as grinding or milling, were sold to make parts as fast as possible because there were thousands of parts backed up waiting to be run. Machinery or solutions suppliers are being required to provide a highly flexible machine to deal with the quick changeovers driven by the rapidly changing mix going though the cell. Aerospace had long been known as ardently protective of its manufacturing processes. This is no longer the case. The industry has come to realize that chip-making/grinding processes are not so proprietary. The industry's focus has shifted to making a part the most efficient way possible. With reduced in-house resources, this has led to outsourcing, asking suppliers to develop and deliver a process, not a machine. Inventory control became a huge issue. Companies started looking at what their real inventory and work-in-process (WIP) were. Grinding has long been a machining process of choice because so much of what is manufactured in aerospace is safety-critical. It has also been a process of choice because many materials don't machine well any other way. That drives manufacturers to grinding and EDM as alternatives. Grinding has always been critical to the hot part of the engine, and that's only increasing because engine temperatures have increased. Plated CBN will produce a good product, but as you go to finer surface finishes, you have to go to finer grained wheels, which have less area for chips to clear the cut. A lot of operations on turbine blades just don't lend themselves to plated wheels-or force you to a roughing wheel and a finishing wheel and two separate cuts. Users now want to hold a part one time and grind five or six features. With the tool changer, operations can be split into individual features. Now you can dress one wheel every ten parts, another every twenty parts, and you can optimize the economics of the wheel. You can have a totally different abrasive for of each operation-a really hard wheel for one, a real soft wheel for another, CBN for another, plated CBN for yet another-all in one machine and one chucking. What this means is that now you can optimize each operation to its individual abrasive type, feeds, and speeds. You can clamp the part one time and do more operations within your required takt time. Plus, if you have to change a wheel, you can already have a second wheel in the changer, as in redundant tooling.
The changing face of aerospace manufacturing. Production takes a fresh look at materials, strategies
Tooling and Production ; 71 , 7 ; 18-22
2005
4 Seiten, 6 Bilder
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Englisch
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