Automated Programming, to enable on-demand manufacturing in the Dynamic Factory

At Airborne, we build all our machines with the Automated Programming technology. But what is and how does it help you to become more flexible and efficient?

Automated systems for composite manufacturing are complex systems. First of all, they need to handle the delicate composite materials with the right process (pressure, temperature, welding parameters, etc) to ensure the proper quality and avoid damage done to the materials. These process parameters vary per material, but also per product design and even per ply shape.

Secondly, composite parts are made up of many layers of material, all with different shapes. Parts can also be multi-material, such as glass- and carbon fiber, fabric and unidirectional tape, sandwich with a core, a metal mesh etc, all requiring different process parameters.

composite parts are made up of many layers of material, all with different shapes.

And to make even more difficult, most composite factories run a high mix of products. To optimise the assests (for example autoclaves) and minimise waste of the expensive materials (for example during the material cutting step), products are combined, or nested. This is an operational planning optimisation which can change from day to day.

So we end up with many scenarios! It would be a lot of work to programme and test all steps manually. And since a good engineer is a lazy engineer, we came up with a different approach.

Factory

Programming robots

If you programme robots, there are basicly 2 ways: teaching the robot, or offline programming.

Programming robots

Teaching a robot is done on the shopfloor. The robot is moved to coordinate points, typically by a handheld device, to create a sequence of movements. This is also called ‘online programming’.

The alternative is offline programming, where the programmer uses a robot simulation tool where the robot and the enviroment is represented. It’s basicly the same process of teaching the robot, providing it instructions to generate the robot programme. The advantage is that it is offline, so a robot in operation doesn’t need to be stopped to be programmed. Also potential collisions can be checked.

Both approaches need a technician or engineer and that is exactly what we want to avoid.

Automated Programming

With Automated Programming, no engineer is involved. The design and operational input is taken and translated directly into the right robot code and process settings for each individual ply. This is done on-the-fly, on the shopfloor. The operator loads the right input information into the system, or takes it from the company ERP system, and the he/she can start the manufacturing immediately. Also this input step can be automated of course if a central digital system is available at factory level. The input is collected via a portal, which is a portfolio of options and includes manual input (operator uploading the information), local in the factory (direct connection to ERP/MES) or cloud-based (information coming from other sites or via a web portal). The design input also includes the material information, which is in the context of composites very important to be able to define the right program and process settings.

Automated Programming

Below is a comparison between the traditional way of preparation for a manufacturing run and the Airborne method with Automated Programming. It’s clear that all the steps and engineering involvement between design and planning input is removed, which provides a much director and faster control of the automated manufacturing systems.

A comparison between the traditional way of preparation for a manufacturing run and the Airborne method with Automated Programming.

On-demand manufacturing in a Dynamic Factory

So, why is this approach important? Of course, it saves engineering time and makes it easier, but is that it?

For us, Automated Programming is an essential building block to create on-demand manufacturing capability. It takes away the intermediate, human step of preparing for production. If that is automated, there is no time loss, no room for errors and no additional quality control loops to catch the errors. In our experience, composite factories are quite static. And we have seen many composite production plants! Because of the high variety in materials, designs, number of plies and processes that do not run at the same cycle time, it’s a complex operation and most companies manage that by avoiding too many changes. Every change, every hickup in the long process chain causes problems and a lot of human management intervention.

If the operation of the machines can be changed instantly, then the world changes. With a proper digital factory management system, interuptions in the flow can automatically be solved. And even if this is still done by management, the operation of the factory can be changed by a push of the button. New designs can easily be added in the mix. Material flow can be optimised daily. Planning changes are not a problem to implement. And the storage of material, half-products and finished parts can be reduced. We call this concept the ‘Dynamic Factory‘, which can adapt seamlessly to new conditions.

Examples of how we use Automated Programming

In the next article, I will explain several examples how we use Automated Programming in our systems and show the specific complexities of composites. Stay tuned!

Already at the JEC World in 2019 we demonstrated the capability. Visitors to our booth in Paris could change the design and layup of laminate, and instantly this design was manufactured live by our robot system in our factory in The Netherlands. Quite cool, if you ask me!

And if you want to see what our vision is of the future composites value chain, have a look at this video:

Let’s discuss!

If you want to know more, don’t hesitate to reach out. We have Automated Programming capability on all of our machines and we also use it to connect third-party systems that we integrate. We are also interfacing directly with third party digital systems at factory operation level, for example to nesting and material tracking software, or MES / ERP systems. All to make your life as easy as possible .

About the author
Picture of Marcus Kremers

Marcus Kremers

CTO

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