MTU Aero Engines
Canvas Category OEM : Aerospace
MTU Aero Engines’ headquarters is Munich. This traditional aviation site is inextricably linked to the history of powered flight, its roots reaching back to the beginning of the last century. It is from here that the affiliates and most of MTU’s research and development activities are controlled. Engines are here assembled and components manufactured for shipment to the big engine OEMs. In Munich, moreover, spare parts are manufactured and innovative repair and maintenance techniques developed for use at the company’s affiliates. And it is also at this location that MTU has set up a center of excellence for blisks for which it has built a new, highly advanced production shop. Furthermore, MTU is the German industrial lead company for the engines flown by the country’s military, with all military programs focused at the Munich location.
Assembly Line
Fastems and MTU Aero Engines
As far as possible, system integrators should be experts in the disciplines of both hardware and software. Particularly the “soft” side of automation has become immensely more important, not least because of Industry 4.0. The magnitude of this is demonstrated by a challenging project of MTU Aero Engines AG. The aircraft engine manufacturer was looking for a partner to implement a highly automated blisk production system and opted for Fastems, whose many years of experience in software development enabled it to provide the necessary intelligence for the solution that was envisaged.
According the production manager, the loading and unloading alone means that the Monforts cannot run as autonomously as the milling centers with workpieces requiring long machining times of between 20 and 40 hours. “However, automation with the gantry loader gives us a decisive increase in efficiency. Despite very short processing times of between 20 minutes and two hours, we were able to increase the throughput of these machines by a factor of 4 to 5,” says Walter Sürth, emphasizing the manufacturing quality in connection with the demand for high productivity: “From a technological point of view, the production of blisks is the best that can be expected from a machine tool in terms of precision and therefore repeatability. However, if the workpieces aren’t set up accurately, not even the highest-precision machines are of any use.” This is why the main MLS has three Fastems high-precision set-up stations where the devices can be fitted on zero-point clamping systems for both mill-turning and milling centers. “The accuracy of the set-up stations is comparable to the machine tools. This means potential errors are avoided and cannot even enter production,” says Sürth.
The Manufacturing Management Software (MMS) from Fastems, which is specially adapted to the extremely stringent and specific requirements of blisk production, serves as a nervous system for the overall automation solution. The control system plans the entire production for 96 hours in advance and must constantly be able to manage up to 1,500 jobs. Put another way, this can be around 150,000 manufacturing operations. If the deadline is moved, the MMS reschedules the entire production in real time, again for four days in advance.