The survival of the agile

AMJune20Features - amrc1
AMJune20Features - amrc1

According to Andy Silcox, research director, University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) Cymru, there are few certainties in the aerospace supply chain right now.

 

For the last two decades, commercial airline manufacturers and their associated supply chains have enjoyed unprecedented demand for their products. With Boeing and Airbus each exceeding 800 aircraft deliveries in the last two years – and with a large backlog of orders – the industry felt supremely confident that the market would continue to grow strongly.

But even as we approached 2020, troubling signs began to appear on the radar screens to punch holes in that confidence. Having grounded its entire fleet of 737 Max aircraft, following two fatal crashes, Boeing began the decade with orders for just 54 planes: compared with 893 the previous year. All this against a surging swell of public opinion pushing the industry to go further and faster in reducing aviation CO2 emissions and the warning lights went red. Then Covid-19 struck.

Andy Silcox, research director, University of Sheffield AMRC Cymru

According to figures from ADS, 370 aircraft order cancellations were recorded between January and April this year. Deliveries of planes hit a record low of just 20 in April and it is likely to take several years before production is restored to pre-crisis levels.

One thing we know for sure is that the established commercial aviation supply chains will need to adapt quickly if they are to survive a prolonged slump in demand. But, to adapt, they need to be agile; and that means wholeheartedly embracing Industry 4.0 technologies.

Adept at adaptation

The agility created by these technologies was prominently displayed when a consortium of UK manufacturers pivoted their operations to join the fight against Covid-19, as the rest of the country went into lockdown. At AMRC Cymru, we quickly turned our sparkling new Welsh Government funded R&D facility into a production line making thousands of life-saving medical ventilators.

For us, and for many others around the country, having flexible, digital manufacturing processes enabled us to do this. Industry 4.0 technologies, such as modelling and simulation, automation and augmented reality (AR), are key tools in giving manufacturers the flexibility to respond rapidly to changing market conditions. Businesses that invest in these technologies will be at a significant competitive advantage as they will be able to execute changes in direction quicker than their rivals.

At AMRC Cymru, with our partners Airbus and the help of the Ventilator Challenge UK consortium, we deployed these digital tools to safely install 16 assembly lines into our vast, mostly-empty R&D facility, in less than a fortnight. We needed a shopfloor where 88 operators could work simultaneously while maintaining safe social distancing. Quite a task, but one that is very similar to the challenge many manufacturers are now facing as recession looms.

Fundamental to our agility was the use of discrete event simulation (DES) modelling. By creating a digital model of the building, the mobilisation team were able to experiment with different layouts and run different scenarios to maximise the efficiency of production, logistics, flow of people around the facility and even the welfare breaks whilst all the time ensuring safe social distancing.

By investing in such a modelling exercise now, aerospace supply chains and other manufacturers can not only minimise the productivity impact of the Covid-19 restrictions, but also be equipped with a tool that enables them to plan effectively for future similar scenarios.

At Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrain, the AMRC provided two MiR automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to assist in the production of ventilator devices being made at their Northamptonshire facility.

In just a few hours, with no additional infrastructure, the AGVs were put to work delivering parts to workstations, removing the risk of cross-contamination from human operatives conducting logistic operations. The use of collaborative robots and AGVs have obvious immediate benefits for implementing social distancing, but their ability to be integrated into a safe, shared working environment with human operatives means they can be quickly deployed as a flexible resource anywhere they are needed around the factory.

For those of us from the punched tape fed CNC generation, the idea of using technology like AR headsets in day-to-day manufacturing operations may seem like a step too far down the digitalisation route. However, by using Microsoft HoloLens devices to deliver step-by-step assembly instructions, the Ventilator Challenge UK team were able to rapidly train hundreds of automotive and aerospace assembly technicians to build medical devices. Again, the headsets also provided the opportunity to further reduce the Covid-19 contamination risk by using them to deliver remote fault finding and technical assistance.

The Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, Cymru

Moving forward, by digitalising work instructions and delivering them on AR headsets or tablets in conjunction with digitally connected SMART tools, manufacturers can create a much greater flexibility in their workforce without compromising quality or productivity.

Understandably, at a time of such great uncertainty, the idea of large investments in such technologies is not particularly enticing; but from our experience over the last two months we have proven these technologies can be deployed quickly and at relatively low cost and risk, to get manufacturing operations back up-and-running safely while maintaining productivity despite Covid-19 restrictions.

Implementation of such technologies on their own can have a significant impact in helping manufacturers to operate efficiently in the testing circumstances we find ourselves in. But, by taking these steps now, they can provide the foundations to begin to build a digitally connected, reconfigurable production facility.

Building a digital factory

At the AMRC we have the £43 million Factory 2050, the UK’s first state-of-the-art digital factory entirely dedicated to conducting collaborative research into reconfigurable robotic, digitally assisted assembly and machining technologies.

Factory 2050 is designed to address the rising need for high variation and mass customisation manufacturing throughout a diverse range of engineering sectors which we were able to put into action on the shopfloor to manufacture life-saving ventilators.

That knowledge and expertise isn’t the property of just the AMRC though, it is available for all manufacturers to take advantage of and our team of engineers are on hand to help manufacturers understand how these technologies can be deployed in any production environment.

For some time now we have known that factories operating in the aerospace supply chain need to become more flexible, sustainable and operable with minimal human interaction if they are to have a profitable future. Even before the world was turned upside down by the Covid-19 pandemic, digital agility was needed to enable the industry to meet the two great challenges of climate change and decarbonisation. Today, that agility is needed more than ever: simply to survive.

www.amrc.co.uk

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