The aerospace industry is one of the most regulated. Before you can begin to operate a manufacturing company for aircraft and spacecraft parts, you’ll have to meet several regulations and have several certifications. The technology preferred for the quality manufacture of parts is advanced compared to other engineering industries.
Quality assurance and regulation ensure that minimal aircraft accidents result from part malfunctioning. Aircraft accidents resulting from part malfunction may cost your manufacturing company millions of dollars through lawsuits. Manufacturers in this industry extensively use 3D printing technology and advanced precision machining and engineering. Precision engineering uses computer numerical control (CNC) machining.
If you’re planning to venture into aerospace manufacturing, here are essential tips that will help you maintain the quality of parts:
1. Leverage Automation
Automation is unavoidable if you’re going to compete and succeed in this industry. Automation helps improve efficiency and increase productivity. The demand for aerospace parts is growing by the day because today’s number of people who own a private aircraft has increased significantly. In addition, business airlines have also increased. As a result, you must strategize on how to boost productivity.
With that said, automation is your best bet. Automating your manufacturing processes ensures that you can operate 24/7. Artificial intelligence (AI) in aerospace automation eliminates the need for physical supervision of the equipment. Some of the automatic machines can change parts by themselves. In addition, they’re automatic, thus can start and stop by themselves. You only need to program them according to your production specifications.
2. Implement a Quality Assurance (QA) Strategy
You can further enhance the quality of your products by having a quality assurance team in place. It’s a team of individuals dedicated to ensuring that your products pass the quality test. Part of their work is to do mid-process inspections and keep track of measurements’ accuracy according to conventional specifications. In addition, they ought to produce a report of the same. Moreover, your QA team has to make requisitions of damaged materials.
The functions of a QA team may extend to auditing. Auditing work involves inspecting different departments in the manufacturing process. For quality products, auditing and quality assurance
should be done frequently, especially in departments where errors are bound to arise. With that said, hire a team of professionals in your QA department who are well trained and certified.
3. Use the Right Materials
If you’re aiming at market-quality compliant products, you can’t ignore the use of suitable materials in your manufacturing process. They should be the materials that the industry regulators prescribe. When ordering materials from your suppliers, you should look for features like:
· Corrosion resistance, more so for engine parts.
· Strength to withstand damage.
· Ability to resist heat and fatigue.
· Weight. Aerospace materials should be relatively light to help keep the aircraft’s weight as low as possible to enhance fuel economy.
4. Streamline Aerospace Manufacturing Workflows
A seamless flow of work is essential in aerospace parts manufacture. You can achieve this by implementing modern technology to fabricate parts through precision technology such as CNC machining. Several types of CNC machining can benefit your business, like milling, routing, lathing, laser, grinding, waterjet, and plasma cutting.
CNC machining ensures that you build parts from solid material. Precision machines can accurately handle complex geometries and tolerances.
In addition, well-defined workflows involve manufacturing aerospace precision parts using a computer-aided design (CAD). CAD technology is critical in ensuring details in a product. As a result, you can generate the highest standard of a product using 3D. With that said, you must have the right professionals in your manufacturing team.
5. Deploy a Quality Management System (QMS)
As a business owner, you should have measures of digitizing your business processes. Even though having a quality assurance team is a noble step; you can increase their efficiency by purchasing a quality management system. It helps display business processes, safety data, and quality. Professional systems come with an inbuilt quality assurance form and work instructions. The QMS manager can easily collaborate with the QA team to ensure that all the necessary production documents are up to date.
6. Build in a Controlled Environment
Aerospace manufacturing needs buildings that can regulate internal conditions. It would help if you controlled conditions like internal temperature, humidity, and airflow. Likewise, maintaining cleanliness provides a safe space for your employees to be more productive.
Final Thoughts
Quality maintenance and assurance are an integral part of all engineering works. It’s no different when it comes to aerospace parts manufacturing. As a result, venturing into aerospace part manufacturing requires you to meet every industry regulation and guideline. However, there is an appropriate technology to meet all quality specifications. Having known that, this article lists essential tips that can help you.
