While others are still romanticising Industry 4.0, the Starrag Group says it is already realising digitally networked production in Southwest China.

With a completion date of summer 2019, six Ecospeed F 2060 are to be installed at Chengdu Aerospace's aircraft factory in China to create one of the most productive and efficient plants in the world. The plant will be used for the complete processing of aluminium structural components.

A high level of investment is being made in the Chinese aviation manufacturing: The industry plans to build over 1,900 new aircraft by 2025 at a total cost of around US$300 billion and is investing heavily in new production technology.

Chengdu Aerospace Plane Aviation Machinery Equipment has now ordered a digitally-networked flexible manufacturing system (FMS) with cell controllers from the Starrag Group. Work will take place between January 2018 and summer 2019 to install an FMS comprising six Ecospeed F 2060 and a total of 20 pallets, two set-up stations, a transfer car and 17 storage locations. The Ecospeed machining centres are characterised by 120kW spindles (30,000rpm), a pallet size of 6,000mm x 2,000mm and Sprint Z3 parallel kinematic machining heads. Thanks to its patented kinematic process, the Sprint Z3 head greatly exceeds the position speed of a multi-axis milling head.

In addition to standard components such as angular milling and drilling heads, the FMS also contains two new highlights: The Sonic Eye measuring head significantly reduces the effort required to take measurements during the production of structural components which require documentation. The ultrasonically measured data, with a measuring accuracy: ±20µm, is wirelessly transmitted via radio antenna to the CNC, which also controls the use of the Sonic Eye.

The CNC program Eco-Trim also saves time and money as the operator can quickly check the machine and compensate for any deviations as necessary. This clear saving of time also allows automatic calibration. The program takes a fully automatic check of the current status of the machine and generates a log with a time stamp. This log is then saved in the CNC as an ‘electronic fingerprint’.

Other technical details also contribute to making the FMS a complete system that is unique for its type: A central plant supplies all six machines with coolant and a central collection system with silo and briquette presses takes care of chip extraction. A robot magazine located above the FMS features 1,500 slots to supply the machines with tools from a central location. The integrated workpiece washing system ensures that components remain clean.

Such projects are rare today and even then, are usually only pilot projects during ‘green field’ development of a new factory. Thanks to a large number of successfully handled large projects, for example in the global airline industry, the Starrag Group can provide this type of customised digital manufacturing solution with a high level of process reliability almost off the shelf.

“We have laid the foundations for Industry 4.0 with our own Starrag Integrated Production System (IPS) and the cell controller technology that has been developed in house,” says Walter Börsch, CEO of the Starrag Group. “With our digitalisation solutions, we can provide all of the typical customer requirements, such as higher productivity, greater safety and high levels of growth.”

Interested parties learned more about Industry 4.0 at the CIMT China International Machine Tool Show in Beijing last April. The Starrag Group showed the Sprint Z3 parallel kinematic machining head. This can now also be driven by a newly developed 150kW spindle, which – when compared to the figures achieved using the 120kW spindle – increases the machining performance when processing high-strength aluminium by 25% to 12litres/min.

www.starrag.com