Scaling Aerospace Production Without Costing Quality – Advanced Manufacturing

Scaling Aerospace Production Without Costing Quality  Advanced Manufacturing

The aerospace industry is facing high order backlogs, while also dealing with shortages of skilled workers, unstable supply chains and increasingly complex products. It needs to produce more with the The aerospace industry is facing high order backlogs, while also dealing with shortages of skilled workers, unstable supply chains and increasingly complex products. It needs to produce more with the same, or sometimes even fewer, resources. The pressure to produce more is pushing three competing priorities to the front: Increasing production output and reducing cycle times, automating inspection and quality processes and making measurement data available across production, engineering and management. What used to make speeding up production a challenge was the lack of connected technology on the shop floor.

Now, leading shop floors are folding quality checks directly into production instead of running them after the fact. That shift is changing what manufacturing customers are asking for when they buy new equipment. Approximately 12-18 months ago, many manufacturing conversations were still focused on siloed measurement systems. Manufacturers were asking themselves, “What CMM (coordinate measuring machine), scanner or sensor do I buy that provides the accuracy required?” As the pressure for production speed grows, the conversation has changed. Today, the discussion is much broader. Customers are asking how measurement systems can be integrated into their current manufacturing environment, and they