Anyone who has spent time costing manufactured products knows that costing of machined parts is the benchmark by which all cost estimating software is measured. aPriori excels in this challenge, generating detailed cost estimates to help bring innovative, cost-optimized products to market faster. Check out this short 3-minute video to Learn More!
Read More →Video: Lightweighting Aerospace
Aerospace manufacturers are actively incorporating high performance, lightweight materials into their manufacturing processes in an effort to improve efficiency, prolong product life through durability and decrease costs. I sat down with Tim Burbey, Founder and President of Blueshift, at the American Aerospace & Defense Summit to discuss lightweighting and how polymer aerogels will be a game changing material in the industry. The American Aerospace & Defense Summit will be returning to Scottsdale, Arizona, on December 6-7 2016! Find out more about the 2016 Summit.
Read More →Not All Parts Are Created Equal: Choosing the right CNC Machining Company for the Aerospace Industry
Precision machining techniques are needed to produce aerospace components that are instrumental throughout an aircraft. These components are often ‘life-critical’, intricate parts that need to meet very precise specifications with high tolerance thresholds. “Quality is a given, because these parts are going in jet engines and landing gear, all across an airplane. It’s what we call ‘life-critical’. There is no room for failure.” explains Scot Barton, VP Sales at Pointe Precision. Given the vital nature of the components, selecting the right CNC Machining partner is a critical aspect of an aerospace manufacturers’ process. When selecting a CNC Machining partner there are a couple of key factors to consider: Technological Capabilities When it comes to machining high quality precision parts, the first and most important aspect is the in-house equipment that your potential partner is utilizing. The ideal machining partner will have: A full complement of high-quality machines with the ability to process large volumes quickly and seamlessly. Multi-tasking capabilities to allow machining in a single operation as opposed to only offering multi-fixture operations. This machining capability will allow for greater reliability in the generation of aerospace parts. Multi-tasking capabilities also allow for improved internal flexibility as operators move from machine to machine, going where the work is. Sam Crueger, Engineering Manager at Pointe Precision explains that “the quality is (also) better when a part can be completed on a single machine.” ‘One-Stop-Shop’ offerings: Ensuring that all of your CNC Machining …
Read More →How Plasma Enables Enhanced Efficiency and Decreases Costs in Aerospace Manufacturing.
Aerospace and defense manufacturers are constantly seeking ways to improve product durability and reliability while reducing costs. Incorporating composite materials into aerospace production has presented manufacturers with unique cleaning and adhesion challenges in processes such as joining, printing, coating, sealing and painting. Surface treatment and surface modification have therefore arisen as a critical factor to aerospace manufacturers, especially during the production of aircraft components such as wings or fuselages. Plasma treatment is ideal for a number of these processes as it helps to join dissimilar materials including difficult to adhere to plastics and lightweight substrates, protect against corrosion, prevent leaks, resist flaking. Plasmatreat is the global leader in proven automated plasma technologies for manufacturing. Plasmatreat has received a distinguished TRL 9 rating by industry customers classifying it as a reliable strong manufacturing solution. Improved bonding and adhesion for component, lightweight parts The bonding and adhesion of aerospace parts is critical for an industry where safety and durability are paramount. Lightweight, dissimilar materials such as carbon fiber (CFRP), aluminum, sheet molding compound (SMC) and high performance polymers are used in both body and component design. Joining these dissimilar materials can only be achieved when the surfaces are clean and prepped for bonding/adhesion. The cleaning and functionalization of material surfaces is necessary to achieve strong permanent bonds leading to high quality production output, yielding a safe and reliable product. Traditionally, prepping for bonding includes surface roughing such as sanding, welding or metal …
Read More →Video: Key Cost Management Challenges for the Aerospace Industry
In an earlier post we addressed the benefits of Should Costing for the aerospace industry. In today’s post I wanted to share the following video that builds on that knowledge and discusses the challenges the industry is facing in adopting this method. As previously discussed, Should Costing is a systematic process that enables cost reduction from the conceptualization stage through the product life-cycle. This is particularly relevant to the aerospace industry as maintaining competitiveness is highly dependent on an organization’s ability to reduce product costs and delivery cycle times. The industry as a whole continues to face challenges in managing product costs from the inception stage through the very long life-cycle of its products. In this video Philippe Sottocassa, Global Vertical Head, Aerospace & Defense, Geometric Ltd. discusses these challenges as well as the status of adoption in the aerospace industry. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKfAsXVb5lE&w=560&h=315]
Read More →Deliver Enhanced Efficiency in Aerospace Manufacturing
Aerospace manufacturers are emphasizing the need to incorporate high performance, lightweight materials into their manufacturing processes in an effort to improve efficiency, prolong product life through durability and decrease costs. In today’s post we will look at one of the innovations entering the market that has the potential to change the way aerospace manufacturers integrate composites and use aerogels. Blueshift International Materials is a new player in the aerospace arena that has recently brought to market a unique product, AeroZero®, a 100 percent-polymer aerogel that is both lightweight and easily incorporated into composites. The high performance material combines the physical and toughness properties of plastic films with the insulation properties of aerogels to create a strong yet lightweight, thin, clean and flexible insulator. “The emphasis on the lightweighting of products has sparked a growing need for composite materials such as AeroZero due to their low density nature and high thermal insulating properties.” Explains Garrett Poe, Executive Vice President, Blueshift. As the 2015 winner of the JEC Innovation Awards in the Raw Materials category, AeroZero has already garnered attention and demonstrated its ability to be easily incorporate into composites. “Existing aerogels are made from particulate silica, which inhibits their adoption in composite structures,” explains Garrett, “Blueshift AeroZero was designed to be a highly capable core material that is extremely easy to incorporate into composites, meeting the needs of a variety of industries while seamlessly overcoming this significant obstacle organizations face with other aerogel solutions.” AeroZero’s value …
Read More →Speaker eBook: American Aerospace & Defense Summit 2015
With the American Aerospace & Defense Summit 2015 less than 6 weeks away, we took a moment to gather some of the key thought leaders presenting at the event, and asked them to share their insights and opinions on the current state and future outlook of the aerospace and defense industry in the U.S. We posed the questions: How would you describe the current state of the aerospace and defense industry in America? What do you perceive as being some of the biggest challenges for defense or aerospace companies over the few years? How can these challenges be overcome? What are some effective techniques in driving innovation amongst suppliers? What is the next big trend in terms of supply chain management for aerospace & defense companies? How has aerospace & defense manufacturing changed over the last decade? What do you think is the next ‘big thing’ in terms of aerospace & defense manufacturing? Explore strategies to optimize aerospace and defense manufacturing with us in Arizona this December at the American Aerospace & Defense Summit 2015!
Read More →Whitepaper: Avoid 4 Common Pitfalls of Designing an OpenVPX™ System
OpenVPX is a COTS technology, used in rugged C4ISR designs, which reduces risk, so why are delays and overruns so common during the design phase? There are a number of common pitfalls that, unless avoided, can wreak havoc on OpenVPX designs. Atrenne Integrated Solutions, an organization that has over 40 years of experience in COTS designs for military and aerospace rugged computing, has identified the 4 most common pitfalls in designing an OpenVPX System. These errors and misconceptions can throw off your schedule, overrun your project budget and knock your well-conceived VPX project off the rails.
Read More →Reduce Product Costs Using The Should Costing Method
“Should Costing provides the basis for continuous cost reduction and waste elimination. Should Costing also provides the ability to formulate the best economies of scale from a cost view point, which can be used to leverage a ‘best price’ in the negotiation process.” – Geometric Limited Should Costing is a systematic process that enables cost reduction from the conceptualization stage through the product life-cycle. Maintaining competitiveness within the aerospace industry is highly dependent on an organization’s ability to reduce product costs and delivery cycle times. However, the industry as a whole continues to face challenges in managing product costs from the inception stage through the very long life-cycle of its products. Aerospace organizations produce complex products that source between 50-70% of their components from suppliers. To eliminate significant costs prior to production, organizations must first identify the major cost drivers of components that are designed, manufactured and procured. Identifying these cost drivers can aid in supplier selection, effective negotiation and advanced segmentation. I sat down with Ken Sutphin, Head of Mechanical Engineering Practices at Geometric Ltd., to explore the benefits that their customers have seen in adopting the Should Costing method. According to Ken, clients that have utilized Geometric’s proprietary productivity tools for Should Costing have enabled: An improved ability to launch new products at target costs. Processes with integrated tools that are almost 2X faster than conventional process with better repeatability and accuracy. Complete recognition and understanding of component …
Read More →The Benefits of Concentricity
“In GD&T, concentricity is a complex tolerance used to establish a tolerance zone for the median points of a cylindrical or spherical part feature. Concentricity is generally reserved for high-precision parts when there is a need to control median points.” – eMachineShop Precision-drilled custom tubing and tubular components are used in medical devices, aerospace applications, nuclearpower plants, industrial manufacturing plants, high temperature furnaces and many other designs. When it comes to tubing and tubular components, concentric, seamless precision tubing is often chosen for its added reliability, rotational stability, strength and increased useful life. Unlike welded tubing, seamless tubing is able to handle high pressure evenly, provides uniform fatigue properties and often reduces the frequency for inspections in high stakes uses. Tube Hollows International specializes in manufacturing highly concentric tube hollows that meet critical design tolerances. The company machines ultra-high concentricity seamless precision tubing in the most challenging alloys, using gun drilling, trepanning, honing and other technologies. I sat down with Tube Hollows to draw from their expertise and gain a greater understanding of the benefits of concentricity. Tube Hollows’ Director of Business Development Alex Miller explained that when engineers define the component part and tubing requirements of complex engineering projects, they often must strike a balance between design specifications, cost, safety, and quality concerns. The concentricity needs of a project can be determined by assessing how the part will function in its end use, whether or not the part will interact with other parts and the environmental factors influencing tolerances for the part. According to Tube Hollows and leading engineering professionals, concentricity in …
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