The development and implementation of low cost capital equipment utilizing integrated technology into sustaining manufacturing operations is the focus of this presentation. As product manufacturing designs in configuration flexibility and rapid change response processes, legacy production lines are becoming more baseline integrated and extending their producing product life cycles.
With the continuing evolution of laser technologies, integrated with automated drilling advancements and new programming/software capabilities, a Lean thinking engineer can integrate these singular developed technologies into a specific sustaining production operation, ultimately improving product quality and reducing production costs at a fraction of yesterday's capital prices.
This presentation demonstrates the integration of these technologies into a sustaining legacy production line where costs are the driving factor limiting capital improvement expenditures, primarily due to a negative return on investment.
Utilizing a focused integration approach, LM has adapted a Multi-Cam Plasma Machine into a High Speed Drilling operation, executing over 5,000 rivet holes per ship in a legacy airframe structure, eliminating antiquated, non ergonomic sustaining Tooling, Manual Drilling and hole location variances, ultimately reducing production cycle time, improving the employee ergonomic environment, and significantly improving the product quality.
Conventional applications today are a significant cost and difficult to justify in a sustaining environment, but if we focus on an integrated approach of new, emerging, low cost technology advancements; i.e., laser applications, machine controllers, spindle technologies, drill materials and geometries and new machine component advancements, integrated with new software applications, the ultimate desired outcome can be achieved.