Product category:
Flexible machining cells and systems (FMS)
News Release from: Fastems Divisions, Helvar | Subject: Flexible manufacturing system - aerospace parts
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 19 December 2006
Aerospace plant enjoys 99.8% FMS
availability
Believed to be the world's most efficient flexible manufacturing system links five horizontal machining centres and has 99.8% availability.
Arguably the world's most efficient flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is to be found at SPS Aerostructures, Mansfield, one of three machining facilities operated by the first-tier supplier to Airbus, Rolls-Royce, Spirit Aerosystems and Westland Helicopters Linked by a 112-position, computer-controlled storage and retrieval system from Fastems for housing machine pallets and raw material, five Matsuura high-speed, horizontal machining centres are available for SPS to use for 99.8% of the time
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 23 May 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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At the end of October 2000, the first phase of a GBP 600,000 flexible manufacturing system project became operational at the Poole factory of Westwind Air Bearings.
The turnkey FMS was supplied and project managed over an 18-month period by Matsuura in the UK and became fully operational in the Autumn of 2006.
Engineering manager at SPS Aerostructures, Pete Steffen, who oversaw FMS installation and was instrumental in optimising its performance, says that actual spindle utilisation across the five machines is 93%.
This is the average time that they are in-cycle (cutting, in rapid traverse, or changing a tool or pallet), producing sub-0.5m leading / trailing edge wing components and wingbox details for civil aircraft, mainly Airbus products.
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Coventry-based Viasystems has installed a new, flexible manufacturing system (FMS) for machining the front and rear extrusions that go into electronic equipment racks.
System serves any make of M-C with pallets
One of the main benefits of the Fastems FPM compact pallet storage and retrieval systems design is that the pallet crane can deliver pallets to a variety of machining centres.
A utilisation figure of 93% is astonishingly high in an industry where 50 to 60% is average and 85% is regarded as 'world class'.
It is testament to the commitment of SPS Aerostructures' operations director, Charlie Follett, and his production team.
As a result, the company has been able to increase its share of the European market and tender more competitively for global contracts, both for legacy aircraft and for new programmes.
Commented Steffen, "We used to make parts for higher volume aircraft on stand-alone machining centres, but to compete on a world stage and move forward over the next five or six years, we needed to meet customers' cost-down expectations." He said: "Competition from the Far East is ever present, and the only way we could secure the contracts was to increase production efficiency dramatically by using advanced manufacturing techniques like the FMS." The 93% figure for system utilisation is achieved across a range of more than 1,000 different components in batch quantities as small as one-off, making the efficiency of the FMS all the more impressive.
On the shop floor, it translates into major productivity advantages.
Using SPS Aerostructures' earned standard hours (ESH) method for assessing production cost effectiveness, which is a measure not only of FMS up-time but also takes into account operator performance, some impressive results are being achieved.
The FMS comprises five Matsuura H.Plus-630 horizontal machining centres with 120-tool magazines linked by a three-level storage system from Fastems, Finland, with capacity to hold 68 Europallets of raw aluminium billet and 44 machine pallets, 30 equipped with cubes and 14 with tombstones.
Capacity is high for the footprint, allowing efficient utilisation of floor space.
There are two load-unload stations with a rotating pallet table where operators remove machined parts and fixture new billets.
There is also an input / output station with a conveyor to allow raw material to enter the system for storage and to be retrieved when needed.
Material movement within the store is effected by a 3-axis CNC, rail-guided stacker crane fitted with telescopic forks for pallet handling.
The main window in the control displays a mimic of the entire system and uses colours and icons to advise the real-time status of all the system elements.
The FMS achieves high utilisation of the 12,000 rev/min spindles under unmanned running conditions by virtue of Fastems' Windows-based MMS (manufacturing management system) control software.
Its core tasks are scheduling of automatic pallet transfers between the loading station and the machine tools, input and output of raw material as required, and control of the stacker crane.
Production order data and part programs are downloaded automatically from SPS Aerostructures' host system into the FMS control and order information is transferred back after completion of the machining cycles.
Operators effectively work in a paperless environment, as set-up sheets, tooling data and special setting notes or photographs are stored electronically.
When a pallet is sent from a loading station into the FMS, a route is assigned to it and the system automatically controls the defined sequence of steps and ensures that the correct NC program is sent by DNC and instigated when the pallet reaches a machine.
The software uses an algorithm to schedule pallet transfers so that idle time of the Matsuura machines is minimised.
Should the next machine not be available for any reason, for example it already contains a pallet or required tooling is not in place, the pallet is taken to a storage position until a destination becomes available.
The MMS log lists all events, warnings and alarms and there is a modem connection for remote diagnostics.
An integral tool management module within MMS holds and manages all tool data in the magazines and outside of the machines, including length and radius offsets and remaining life.
Tooling data is sent to and from the machines automatically, as tools are tracked throughout the entire FMS using a unique identifier held on a Balluff chip attached to each tool.
A Zoller tool pre-setter has been integrated into the system.
Matsuura specified the machines with powerful spindles capable of high metal removal rates in order to keep cycle times short even when relatively low feed rates are used, which is frequently dictated by milling of small pockets that characterise this type of aerospace work.
Additionally, the geometric accuracy of the machines has eliminated the need, in certain instances, for secondary jig boring operations.
Consistent with the requirement for unmanned running, probes check that billets are loaded correctly, laser detection of broken tools is installed and all machines are fitted with comprehensive coolant and swarf management solutions, which are linked to a central swarf removal system feeding skips located outside the building.
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