While the process includes some manual preparations
including masking, the highly automated new system washes, applies a solvent, rinses and then puts two coats of paint on the wings, noted Didier Rouaud, paint process manager, ABB Robotics. “What we are doing is not just painting, but also sanding and washing the wings prior to the painting process. Te robots spray some chemicals and cleaners on the wing and then it does a wet scrub,” Rouaud said. Te robots are very light six-axis robots coupled with a
three-axis option to make it a nine-axis system, Rouaud said, with a floor rail system and a rotating tower.
“We’re in the infancy stages of our deployment of auto-
mation. If you look at the way we make engines today, we’ve barely scratched the surface of opportunities,” said Alain Ouel- lette, manager, Global Automation and Instrumentation R&D Center. “We still have multiple areas to explore. If you look at automotive, they installed the first robots in 1961. Today, you cannot find an auto facility without them.” While aerospace automation is perceived as low volume,
Ouellette said that is changing. “Te automation technologies have evolved over the last 25 years, the complexity has been reduced, and today we need to contemplate deploying more
“There’s a significant push in aerospace assembly to move away from overhead cranes.”
Boeing’s biggest bottleneck previously was the wait times
for crane moves. With the new system, production time is sped up to just 2.5 days instead of four days, Rouaud said, and quality has improved. “We are putting on exactly the right amount of paint,” he said. Tere’s also a substantial improvement in the look of the
paint finish. “When they are painted manually they appear very dry with the way the paint pools,” said Rouaud, noting the new paint has a wet, very shiny appearance.
Robots Required for Engine Operations For certain high-precision aerospace processes, particularly
for jet turbine engines, only robots can get the job done. “In jet engine production, especially in the leading edge profiling of the engine blades, using automated systems with robotics is the best way to do the job,” noted Chris Blanchette, manager, aerospace automation, FANUC America Corp. (Rochester, MI). “You can’t do it with people.” Robotic automation is helping aerospace manufacturers
improve throughput, quality, and get finer process control, he added. “Automation and robotics are really helping aerospace compete to meet these requirements to improve throughput.” In July 2013, GE Aviation opened a new robotics
R&D center at its Bromont, Quebec, Canada, facility that manufactures many components for GE’s aircraft engines, including the CFM56 engines for the Boeing 737 and Air- bus 320 aircraft, and GEnx engines for the Boeing 787 and Boeing 747-8. Te company invested $61.4 million, including $8 million
from the Quebec government, in the new Global Robotics, Automation and Instrumentation Center at the Bromont facil- ity location, which is one of the most productive global sites operated by GE Aviation. Te new R&D center is developing advanced robotic processes, soſtware applications and intel- lectual property that will be exported to GE Aviation facilities around the world.
automation. We want to compete with other aircraſt engine manufacturers, and we are at the point where some of the engines cannot be built without automation.” A developer of robotic vision and inspection solutions,
AV&R Aerospace (AV&R; Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is an integrator of FANUC robotics and a developer of robotic leading edge and trailing edge profiling machines for turbine engine blade manufacturing. Te company is working with the GE Aviation Bromont facility on many projects, noted Eric Beauregard, AV&R Aerospace CEO. “We’re specializing in aerospace, mostly in turbine jet en-
gine or for energy power generation,” Beauregard said. Many of the systems the integrator develops are in robotic metal removal—machining, grinding and deburring—as well as in the robotic visual inspection systems for complex gas turbine engine blades. “A 3D visual inspection is in development,” said Beauregard, noting that AV&R Aerospace’s customers include all the major makers of jet engines including Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney and GE. “We did many different projects in cooperation with GE
there, one of which is the leading edge profiling system,” he added of the Bromont GE facility, which has more than 120 ro- botic cells. “Te system reads the leading edge with a laser, and based on that feedback profile it gets, it adjusts according to the CAD model. It meets the tolerance and the shape that GE wants to make that part efficient. Tese parts are all forged compressor blades, then they need to profile it, put a shape on it.” Te Bromont facility aims to increase productivity on the
engine blade manufacturing, noted Ouellette, and the robots also help with improving safety aspects for workers. With the automation, variation on the parts is dramatically reduced. “A robot will allow you to go to less than ±5 thousandths on part positioning,” Ouellette added. “If you put in multiple operators in manual production you introduce even more variation than with a single operator. If you can eliminate that significant source of variation, it’s a huge impact on quality.” ✈
Aerospace & Defense Manufacturing 2014 105
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